Why we invested in Veriff?
When Estonia is the unicorn wonderland, Kaarel Kotkas, co-founder and CEO of Veriff is the wonder child of that wonderland. Kotkas, who is 27 years old today, founded his first business in 2013 while still a teenager and put a start to the online identity verification platform Veriff in 2015. In 2020, Kaarel was elected Ernst & Young Estonian Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2018, Nordic Business Report named him one of the 25 most influential young entrepreneurs in Northern Europe.
While many of those lists might sound like all hype and no substance, Kaarel and Veriff have the tech and numbers to back it up. Veriff has developed a unique approach to identify verification combining video and AI to evaluate ID documents. Their assisted image capture optimizes identity verification both in terms of friction and in safety. Veriff users’ first-time pass rates are as high as 93% and the average verification session takes less than a minute.
Veriff is named the leader in the identity verification (IDV) industry and has shown strong consistent growth over the years. Their customer list includes top tier companies like Blockchain.com, Bolt and Trustpilot and they’re the primary identity verification provider for 95% of its financial services customers. In 2021 alone, Veriff increased verification volumes across the globe by more than 8X, and by 20X in the U.S.
No wonder Veriff has been backed by the leading VCs in the world. In 2021, Index Ventures and IVP co-led the B round. In the beginning of 2022, they raised a $100M in the C round, co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon. This brought Veriff’s valuation to $1.5B, making it into yet another Estonian unicorn.
Online identity verification market is on the surge all over the world. While the pandemic sped up digitalization and countless businesses moved online, the boom didn’t stop there. With the market value of around US$ 10 Bn in 2022, IDV market is expected to reach a value of nearly US$ 40 Bn by 2032. Significant growth is powered both by rising regulations and customer expectations.
Both regular people and businesses need to verify identities online — from running a fully online business or onboarding remote workers to consuming digital services. Until the number of people and businesses moving online is growing, the demand for a safe, transparent and simple IDV is also growing.
People are also increasingly aware of the online security risks and for a good reason. In US, the losses of traditional identity fraud increased by 79 percent in 2020 and more than doubled in 2021. Making online safety accessible and frictionless is a mission more important than ever before.
We’re only excited to join Veriff in that journey.
