Passbase raises $13.5M to improve digital ID security for cryptocurrency

Passbase has announced a $10 million Series A funding round, as well as unveiling a previously unannounced $3.5 million Seed-2 investment, and plans to extend its suite of selfie biometrics and digital identity verification products for know your customer (KYC) checks and security.

Both rounds were led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from existing investors Lakestar, Eniac Ventures, and Cowboy Ventures.

Commenting on the news, Passbase says in a blog post it will use the funds to scale its team and operations and create the first robust policy and workflow manager for its digital identity verification service.

Passbase’s customer base has grown eight times larger in 2021, driven by an increased necessity of digital ID verification amidst the pandemic.

The Berlin-based company’s verification flow and back office compliance tools can be integrated in roughly 30 minutes and can verify over 6,000 IDs issued by 190 countries and in 15 languages.

For context, Passbase was first established as a cryptocurrency wallet. It then evolved to use public key cryptography, face biometric authentication, and machine intelligence to verify digital identities and provide compliance services.

“We built Passbase to solve our own problem back in 2018 to allow users to manage their digital identities across different cryptocurrency platforms in a compliant way,” says the company’s CEO Dave McGibbon.

According to the executive, the new investment now brings the company closer to being the trusted identity solution for Web3 companies such as Coinance.

“This is just the beginning for us as we pursue our vision of becoming a digital identity infrastructure that enables Web3 companies to stay compliant and give control of digital identity back to individuals,” McGibbon concludes.

The fresh funds come months after Passbase announced it started accepting crypto payments for its KYC and compliance services.

Entersekt backed by Accel-KKR

Entersekt has received a significant investment from technology-focused private equity firm Accel-KKR to bring in new talent and support the expansion of its mobile authentication and security technologies into new markets.

“The industry is experiencing a wave of innovation in areas like omnichannel and passwordless authentication, 3-D Secure and open banking, all of which are strategic focus areas for Entersekt. The investment from Accel-KKR will help us scale our business to reach more organizations across more regions with our cloud-first solutions,” says Schalk Nolte, Entersekt CEO.

South Africa-based Entersekt announced the addition of FIDO2 authentication to its portfolio in September.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  Entersekt  |  face biometrics  |  funding  |  identity verification  |  investment  |  KYC  |  Passbase