Cutting the red tape: our investment in Legitify

Revolutionizing Notarization

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, traditional processes are often left behind in favor of more efficient, technology-driven solutions. One such area is notarization, a cumbersome process that has remained largely unchanged for decades. Enter Legitify, a forward-thinking company founded in 2020 in Stockholm, which has revolutionized the notarization process with its innovative online platform.

Legitify’s platform offers a streamlined solution to notarize documents remotely, eliminating the need for in-person visits to a notary public. Utilizing audio-video authentication, Legitify provides an end-to-end platform for third-party authentication and validation, making notarization fast, convenient, and accessible anytime, anywhere.

Traditional notarization is notorious for being complicated, time-consuming, and inefficient. Ironically, the same opaque approaches apply to both: notarization of documents for complex cross-border B2B transactions and simplest personal tasks (e.g., notarization of the ID or proof of address required to open a bank account). Legitify flips the script by digitizing the notarization process, making it as efficient as it should be and enabling completely remote document notarization within less than 24 hours.

Navigating Regulatory Shifts and Market Trends

Notarization is required for multiple business processes: any global deal or cross-border trade will include mandatory notarization/certification of multiple documents, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The global notary public market is valued at over €9 billion annually, driven by over 1.2 billion certifications/notarizations completed every year. Examples of such range widely from compliance and banking queries to asset sales or immigration processes and multiple other use cases.

Despite being a developed and well-established industry, digitalization of the market is at an early stage, and disruption of the processes within the industry began just recently. Notably, since 2020, over 80% of EU countries changed laws to allow remote notarization and made possible the creation of a new segment — online/mobile notarization. This segment additionally expanded due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as cross-border transactions by proxy (which require notarization of all documents, so to replace in-person presence) increased by 70–80% since the pandemic began. As a result, in 2022, just the mobile segment notary public market was valued at around $300 million, and it’s expected to grow at a significant pace of 18.2% CAGR to reach over $1.5 billion by 2032. Alternative projections are even more optimistic and project that the segment can grow by 25–27% annually, and the market can reach over $3 billion by 2032. Overall, market dynamics demonstrate a clear shift towards effective digital processes, and high pace adoption of the relevant regulations across EU geographies speaks for itself as well.

Promising Beginnings in Pioneering Notarization

It’s hard to find a better team to pursue this opportunity. Aida brings over 15 years of experience in business development, growth strategy, finance, international management, and operations. Her co-founder, Arko, has over a decade of experience in both legal and tech backgrounds. Together, they form a perfect blend of industry insights and expertise in technology and product development.

What also sets Legitify apart is its focus on development and ambitious strategy in the B2B and B2B2C segments to cover a wider range of value-creation chains and make notarizations available when and where they are needed. The company’s recently upgraded platform, launched in late 2023, promises significantly improved user experience and functionality, along with pre-built API integration capabilities to effectively scale B2B partnerships. Despite being in the early stages, Legitify has already made significant strides, supporting notarizations for over 500 customers across 40 geographies, including prominent enterprise clients (which I’ll leave Legitify to disclose!) and demonstrating the platform’s versatility and appeal across industries.

Looking ahead, Legitify is poised for exponential growth, fueled by the immense market potential and led by an amazing team — a combination of factors that make success almost inevitable! We believe in Legitify’s vision to transform the notarisation industry and are excited to partner with Aida, Arko, and other friends to join Legitify on this mission.