Estonian identity verification provider Veriff on 26 January announced it had raised USD100 million in series C financing; this round brings the company’s total funding to USD200 million and its valuation to USD1.5 billion – which means the company is now a unicorn.
The series C round was co-led by by Tiger Global and Alkeon, joined by existing investors IVP and Accel, the company said in a statement.
In 2021, Veriff increased verification volumes across the globe by more than eight times, and by 20 times in the US.
“After two years of growing digital transactions online due to the pandemic, Veriff increased verification volume in the financial services sector by [ten times] in 2021, making Veriff the primary identity verification provider for 95 per cent of its financial services customers,” the company said.
The new financing will be used to accelerate the company’s global growth and invest in research and development, especially to advance product expansion. The company will also grow its sales and marketing teams to onboard more global clients and build on recent customer success programs.
Seven Estonian unicorns
Through its AI-powered, video-first approach, Veriff is able to make online identity verification more accurate than physical face-to-face authentication and prevent more fraud than any other industry player, the company claims.
Veriff is an online identity verification company founded in 2015. It serves a global portfolio of organisations across the fintech, crypto, gaming and mobility sectors. Among its early investors was also Ashton Kutcher, an American actor.
With Veriff, there are now seven unicorns that have either been founded in Estonia or cofounded by Estonians – Skype, Bolt, Wise, Playtech, Pipedrive and Zego are also part of that family. A unicorn is a term in the business world to indicate a privately held startup company valued at over USD1 billion.
Estonia has the largest number of unicorns per capita of any small country in the world.
Cover: Veriff founders Kaarel Kotkas and Janer Gorohhov. Photo by Jake Farra.
