Smile Identity creates customer identification and identity verification tools in Africa

Smile Identity raises $7 million to create customer identification and identity verification tools in Africa

Smile Identity provides identity verification, digital know your customer, onboard user setup, document verification, life verification, face verification, anti-fraud and deduplication tools that drive rapid growth and expansion of businesses and startups across Africa.

Lagos, Nigeria, July 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/– smile identityThe company that enables identity verification and KYC compliance through artificial intelligence designed for African faces and identities, announced today that the company has secured $7 million in Series A funding.

He has been involved in leading the investment Costano projects The Pan African Venture Capital Corporation CRE Venture Capital, along with a post Local GlobeAnd the Intercept projectsAnd the Future Africa Ventures and angel investors from all over Africa and the world. Existing investors, such as Khosla effectAnd the ValueStream projectsAnd the Beta projectsAnd the 500 startups, s projects story قصة.

The round, which represents the largest investment in an African-focused identity verification company, brings Smile Identity’s total funding to over $11 million. The company plans to use the new funding to improve its services, expand into more markets, add support for more profile types, and hire more engineers and support staff across Africa. Besides this tour, John Coogle From Costanoa, he will join the Smile Identity Board.

Smile Identity was launched in 2017 with the goal of making it easier and faster for Africans anywhere to verify their online identity, while providing startups and established businesses with the tools and software they need. Fraud prevention.

Africans spend excessive time trying to prove or verify their identity in order to access financial accounts, loans, SIM cards, address proof, and social services; An estimated 500 million Africans do not have an official identity. “We believe that anyone should be able to easily establish their identity, anywhere in the world, and that access to a modern digital lifestyle should not depend on the origin of their identity document or their IP address,” he said. Mark StraubCo-founder and CEO of Smile Identity.

To standardize identity verification across the continent and provide a single solution for a new generation of African businesses, Smile Identity works with local identification authorities and has built a platform that combines identity verification with proprietary face verification. Unguarded access and financial inclusion. The company performs more than one million identity checks per month across Africa, and its software is used in banking, fintech, ride-sharing, worker verification, public welfare programs and telecommunications. Its client list includes payment companies such as PaystackAnd the Pay s ShipRash; New banks like Kodabank And Oops. Conventional banks such as Stanbic IBTC; Cryptocurrency exchange like Binanceand Luno and Paxful; And even supply chain companies like Twiga.

“Smile Identity has fueled our hyper-growth across Africa, accelerating our ability to acquire real users and build a great KYC user experience for our customers. With Smile Identity, we have been able to automate our fulfillment process and reduce KYC completion time from two to two minutes. Within 6 weeks after activating Smile Identity’s automated KYC, we catapulted our selves to No. 1 in South Africa’s App Store” said Co-Founder and CEO ShipRashAnd the Majid Majeed.

With subsidiaries, branches and engineers in NigeriaKenya, South Africa, Ghanaand Rwanda and UgandaAmong other things, the growing Smile Identity team consists of people from 12 countries, including 8 African countries.

About the identity of the smile Smile Identity is the leading provider of Know Your Customer (KYC) and identity verification in Africa. We help businesses expand rapidly in Africa by confirming the true identity of their users in real time, using any smartphone or computer. Our technology is based on proprietary machine learning algorithms specially designed for African faces, our products include identity verification, digital KYC, user input, document verification, life verification, face verification, anti-fraud and deduplication checks. Backed by Costanoa, CRE Venture Capital, Khosla Impact, LocalGlobe and a group of angel investors from across Africa, Smile Identity is enabling the growth of technology ecosystems across the African continent, while providing the infrastructure to build trust online. For more information visit www.smileidentity.com.

About CostanwaCostanoa Ventures supports strong and thoughtful founders who are changing the way they do business. Costanoa aims to be a long-term partner to entrepreneurs who build lasting businesses by leveraging data to solve complex business problems. For more information visit www.costanoavc.com.

About CRE Venture Capital CRE Venture Capital partners with visionary entrepreneurs and invests in building world-class technology companies in Africa. Founded by Pule Taukobong and Pardon Makumbe, CRE leverages its relationships and expertise to help founders build African technology companies of global relevance and impact. Current investments include Andela, Flutterwave, Rensource, Yoco and Oradian.

Media contact:Achoel Ochoi[email protected]

Related links: https://smileidentity.comsmileidentity.com/contact-us/press https://cdn.smileidentity.com/Smile-Identity-Media-Kit.zip