Biometrics startup gets accelerator backing for Africa, Middle East expansion

Startup Vove ID has secured funding from The Baobab Network to support an expansion of its biometric KYC and AML services in Africa and the Middle East region. Baobab is an African startup accelerator.

Vove ID was founded just over a year ago by three people, including CEO Khalid Aoussar, and is based in Morocco and the United States. It verifies a digital identity and then provides the capability to reuse it for streamlined onboarding and regulatory compliance, under the tagline, “Verify Once, Verify Everywhere.”

The company provides technologies for recognizing more than 2,000 different kinds of ID documents, AML screening, KYC-compliant onboarding, selfie biometric authentication and age verification. A social media post from Baobab Network also refers to age estimation using biometric analysis.

The company targets the fintech, cryptocurrency, mobility, gambling and HR management sectors.

Vove ID also claims its biometric presentation attack detection (PAD) technology has passed tests for compliance to the ISO standard from iBeta at Level 1 and Level 2.

The listing for the Vove ID app in Apple’s App Store promotes 3D liveness, with a screenshot inviting the user to frame their face and move closer, suggesting the PAD technology is FaceTec’s ZoOm.

The new funding will be used by Vove ID to expand its market reach, add enhancements to its digital ID platform and hire more staff, BitKE reports. The amount of funding secured was not disclosed, but Crunchbase lists the funding as a seed round.

Other Africa-based KYC providers in the market include Smile ID, Dojah, VerifyMe and IdentityPass.

Article Topics

accelerator program  |  African startups  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  funding  |  identity verification  |  onboarding  |  startup  |  Vove ID