Youverify, a San Francisco-based identity verification company helping African banks and startups automate Know Your Customer (KYC) and other compliance procedures, today announced that it has secured a $1M seed round extension. After initially raising $1.5M in 2020, the Company extended the seed round, raising an additional $1M, bringing the total amount raised to $2.5M. Orange Ventures and Lofty Inc co-led the round with additional investment from Octerra Capital, Plug & Play Venture, Syntax Ventures, HTTP Investors, Afer Group and Fronesyz Capital.
Youverify will use the capital to accelerate its growth plans with expansion into new markets and industries. The Company recently expanded into Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. Over the next 18 months, Youverify will continue to grow its footprint to cover 30 countries, increasing the number of IDs it can verify from 400M to 2B IDs. Moreover, the Company will develop new automated compliance products for the gaming, travel, healthcare and telecommunications industries.
Fintech startups and financial service institutions are subject to strict regulations including Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) in their countries of operations. This year, transactions worth $116B will be made through digital payment channels, requiring stringent measures to prevent identity theft and fraud. As fintech continues to grow in Africa, fintech companies will also face greater scrutiny from regulators. With these strong tailwinds, the global regulatory tech (regtech) market is expected to grow to $31B within the next 5 years with large enterprises dominating the market by over 60%. In Africa, regtech will become a $1.2B market and Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt will constitute 80% of the market.
Youverify has grown by 300% YoY due to strong demand for its KYC products. In the last 24 months, Youverify’s revenue and applications processes have grown by more than 1,000% from 14 customers to more than 400 banks and high-growth startups. In the same period, the Company processed more than 5M applications that helped its customers hire talent, sell financial products, and remotely onboard ride-hailing drivers. The Company’s YouID digital identity platform also added more than 500,000 users with 600 service providers on its marketplace waitlist across the continent.
Youverify’s proprietary technology, the Youverify OS (YVOS), provides a single platform for automating due diligence. YVOS combines risk and compliance management with Youverify’s core identity verification platform to provide fintech companies with a comprehensive and enterprise-grade compliance solution. With Youverify’s vFORM, a low and no-code tool, businesses can create a custom process for onboarding new customers using a drag and drop builder.
“We have seen the huge potential in the fragmented regtech market across Africa. We’re kicking off plans to plug in the gaps by expanding our marketplace to emerging and existing startups and traditional financial services companies across the continent. Our unique approach to providing compliance solutions gives us a strategic advantage due to our enterprise platform that goes the extra mile by helping businesses automate compliance workflow beyond basic identity verification,” said Dr. Gbenga Odegbami, Youverify CEO and Co-founder.
“The number of financial service companies and platforms that are embedding financial services into their products will continue to grow in sub-Saharan Africa. All those companies will need to onboard customers and go through KYC, AML processes using a flexible solution such as Youverify. What is at stake now is to go beyond Nigeria. I am happy to see new investors joining the journey and proud to support this team since their seed round,” Gregoire de Padirac, Orange Ventures Principal.
Africa Money and DeFi Summit
The Africa Money & DeFi Summit will connect African fintech, payments & crypto leaders, global platforms and thought leaders on the new opportunities in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) in Accra Ghana on September 27th & 28th 2022. An array of keynotes, panels and breakout sessions will deliver key insights and offer opportunities to connect, network and do business across the African fintech and DeFi landscapes. Register today
