Global investment firm TPG Growth led the $100 million funding that Onfido raised, which will help the global identity verification and authentication firm deliver a new identity standard for easy and secure access to digital services worldwide.

Onfido will announce a large new round of funding on April 15 as COVID elevates the importance of confirmed ID for everything from certificates of immunity to telehealth and financial services. Right now, Onfido is verifying the identity of workers deployed to visit COVID-19 patients at home and partnering with European governments to conduct health checks before returning to work.

The importance of certificates of immunity (for telehealth and financial services) has risen exponentially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

SEE: Coronavirus: Critical IT policies and tools every business needs (TechRepublic)

Onfido has experienced a significantly greater demand for online verification in:

  • Onboard COVID-19 medical volunteers. Onfido partnered with Florence, which supplies registered nurses to get care workers and volunteers to visit COVID-19 patients at home, and Onfido experienced 60% increased demand for the service.

  • Online healthcare and pharmacies. Onfido is experiencing a weekly 40% demand increase, as healthcare organizations transition to telehealth appointments and on-demand medication delivery.

  • Remittance and payments. Onfido is seeing a 1.3x increase weekly in usage of online remittance platforms as a way to combat inability to travel, and also avoidance of physical currency due to tangible nature and tendency to harbor germs.

TGP Growth’s total investment in Onfido brings TGP’s total investment to $200 million.

“Over the coming years, we’ll all be able to use our real identity to seamlessly access everything from financial services, online healthcare and trust marketplaces, to self-check-ins at airports, hotels, and car rentals,” said Husayn Kassai, CEO and co-founder of Onfido.

Can’t remember your password? You’re not alone

Onfido recognizes the continuing challenge for people to remember the many passwords required to interact online. Kassai said in a press release, “Passwords will become a thing of the past as a method for accessing digital services, as will queuing for hours to vote in person. We’re standardizing the way everyone proves their real identity, in a similar way to how Facebook has standardized the way everyone shares their social identity, and LinkedIn has standardized the way everyone signals their professional identity.”

Tech-focused partnerships

He added, “The unique combination of strategic capital as well as US-based TPG’s expertise in scaling companies like Uber and Airbnb make this the perfect investment partnership.”

Onfido’s ability to attract established brands from around the world as clients resulted in a 130% year-over-year growth.

Onfido’s clients include:

  • CLEAR

  • Revolut

  • Expensify

  • Aviata

And has partnered with:

  • ForgeRock

  • SecureKey Technologies

  • Okta

Market leading tech

Mike Zappert, partner of TPG Growth, explained his company’s association with Onfido, and said, “Onfido’s use of AI to develop market-leading tech is extraordinary.” Zappert added that TGP wants to continue the partnership “into news use cases and geography.”

Identity fraud is the most commonly committed crime in the US and one of the fastest growing in the world, noted a representative from Onfido in a press release. As more businesses and services move online, it’s become easier for criminals to hide their real identity, which they’re doing successfully.

The UN estimates that up to 5% of the world GDP is laundered money (that’s $2 trillion USD), and 99% goes undetected.

Taking on credit unions’ reliability

Proving an individual’s identity online has been the bailiwick of credit bureaus, which have been around for 150 years. Before technology–of course–credit bureaus used other means of proof, but today, the many data breaches undermined credit unions’ reliability.

Credit unions’ methods of investigations “create a closed world,” Onfido’s release noted, since credit unions block access to people who are under or unbanked and without access (basically unsearchable) and means that approximately two billion people, or half of the world’s adult population, cannot be accessed.

Solving digital access problems

Onfido plans to solve digital access problems by creating “an open world where everyone’s real identity is their key to access,” and will verify a user’s real identity by analyzing their photo ID and matching it against a selfie video. It will use AI to identify fakes more reliably than of what the human eye is capable.

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, physical access is particularly challenging, and people need fast and secure digital access.

Examples of growth areas in recent weeks include online healthcare (weekly volumes increased by four times), and remittance and payments by 1.3x. Paid and volunteer worker verifications need to help with relief efforts (six times).

The $100 million will be used to further invest in machine learning technology, as well as consolidate existing markets and service demand in new geographies.


Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto