OCR Labs raises $30M to grow global face biometrics presence, plans to double staff

Australian ID verification and biometrics startup OCR Labs has raised $30 million in Series B funding to grow in the Americas, and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) market regions, according to a company announcement.

The fundraising round, led by Equable Capital, will also be used to support the international growth of OCR Labs in the UK, establish an office in North America, create a direct sales force, and hire a global chief revenue officer, the company says. A company representative told Biometric Update in an email that OCR Labs plans to double its staff in the coming year.

In July 2021, OCR Labs raised $15.2 million in Series A funding to introduce its digital ID verification service to the UK and Turkey. When asked if the rapid escalation of funding is a sign of ambitions for a public listing or acquisition, the OCR Labs representative says, “The need to compete on a global scale and ensure we continue to build the best technology and hire world class talent means we will no doubt continue to look for funding in line with our ambitious growth plans.”

OCR Labs offers solutions in digital identity that apply optical character recognition (OCR), document fraud assessment, biometric liveness detection, video fraud assessment, and face matching to verify users. The company says the automated identity verification and face biometrics technology can be applied for anti money-laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) regulations to minimize fraud.

John Myers, CEO of OCR Labs, comments, “This investment provides us with the capital to continue our growth while bringing a value-added investor on to our board. Our vision remains unchanged: we strive to be the leading technology provider of digital identity verification, globally. The market opportunity continues to grow, and with our expansion in the U.S., and investment in our global sales effort, we’re in a phenomenal position to grow our customer base.”

The company counts customers like the Australian government, BMW, Cognito, Vodafone, HSBC, Virgin Money, and Westpac among its client roster. OCR Labs says it is aiming for newly regulated markets that are seeing “tremendous growth” like cryptocurrency exchanges, digital right to work and right to rent checks, and age verification for restricted products.

Alain Meier, co-founder and CEO of Cognito, says, “OCR Labs has been one of Cognito’s preferred partners for ID document verification. The company is extremely nimble, and their products help to verify users that other systems struggle with. We have loved working with OCR Labs and look forward to growing with them after their Series B.”

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  document verification  |  face biometrics  |  funding  |  identity verification  |  investment  |  OCR Labs  |  optical character recognition