Onfido to Pursue New Identity Initiatives After $100 Million Funding Round

Onfido’s upward trajectory continues. The identity verification specialist has secured $100 million in a new round of funding, adding to the $50 million the company received last April. The latest round of funding was led by TPG Growth.

The funds have already been earmarked for several different purposes. At the most basic level, Onfido will use the money to expand the scope of its current business operations. The company enjoyed 130 percent year-over-year growth in 2019, and provides document and identity verification services for numerous customers around the globe. In that regard, the interest from healthcare, payments, and the non-profit sector has skyrocketed in the past few weeks, as more organizations search for contactless authentication options to combat COVID-19.

In the meantime, Onfido will try to advance some of its more ambitious identity initiatives. For example, the company will explore new use cases that would allow people to apply for a passport or vote with a mobile device. It will also try to build an “identity verification” layer of the internet to support those ideas. That layer would reduce the amount of personal information that people need to enter when accessing digital channels, as long as they are willing to complete an initial onboarding process. That, in turn, would give people more privacy while improving security and reducing the threat of data breaches.  

“Identity is broken and needs fixing,” said Onfido Co-founder and CEO Husayn Kassai. “That’s been a large part of our focus, and as time goes on, our processes in digitization, privacy and security have been proven out in parallel with how the world is shifting.”

Many of Onfido’s ideas had already been floated before the onset of the pandemic. However, solutions that minimize the need for in-person contact have taken on a greater urgency in a post-COVID environment.   

“There is enormous demand for secure and simple identity verification and authentication across major sectors,” said TPG Growth Partner Mike Zappert. “[Onfido’s] team has done a remarkable job in a relatively short period of time, and we look forward to partnering with them to continue their momentum into new use cases and geographies.”  

Onfido started reaching out to potential backers in January. The last few stages of the funding round were completed virtually due to the pandemic.

Source: TechCrunch

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April 17, 2020 – by Eric Weiss