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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
In a round led by Canapi Ventures, digital identity management innovator Alloy raised $40 million in Series B funding last week. The round featured participation from Avid Ventures, Felicis Ventures, as well as a trio of existing investors: Bessemer Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, and Eniac Ventures. The investment takes the New York-based company’s total capital to more than $55 million.
“Our mission is to help our customers deploy safe and seamless digital customer experiences,” company CEO Tommy Nicholas wrote on the company blog. “This investment will help us continue to support our growing customer base, while expanding our product offerings and scaling marketing, sales, and customer efforts.”
More specifically, Nicholas noted that the investment will help the company bring new products to market in the areas of transaction and credit decisioning, as well as document verification. He added that Alloy will also continue to invest in its onboarding decisioning system and build a new learning portal to help users maximize their use of Alloy’s technology.
Alloy’s platform enables financial institutions to increase the number of customers they can safely and quickly onboard, automate manual processes to reduce error and manual review burden, and reduce fraud and financial risk. The technology allows FIs to access more than 60 KYC and identity vendors via API, and leverages data from a variety of sources in order to provide real-time risk decisioning. The company includes Ally Bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, and Brex among its partners.
In a blog post titled “Why Canapi is Leading Alloy’s $40M Series B Financing,” the Series B’s lead investor makes a strong case for investment not only in Alloy, but also for investment in digital identity innovation in general. The post discusses the challenge that financial services companies face in meeting compliance and regulatory standards that “were not designed for a digital-first world,” and points out that the arrival of the public health crisis has only made this challenge more acute. “What was costly and ineffective in the past has become unsustainable in the COVID-19 era,” the authors write.
Founded in 2015, Alloy presented “KYC: The Customer Killer – Solved!” at our developer’s conference, FinDEVR Silicon Valley, later that same year. At the event, Nicholas and company CTO Charles Hearn showed how Alloy’s technology enabled businesses to create fully-customizable APIs for customer identification and compliance.
Day Five of FinovateFall Digital featured our Power Panel: Latin America – The Future of Fintech and the Dawn of a New Opportunity. Participating in the conversation were Christopher Carmine, Director of Development, FinTech Connector; Laura González-Estéfani, founder and CEO of TheVentureCity; and Manuel Silva, Partner and Head of Investments for Santander InnoVentures.
The panelists, led by moderator Greg Palmer, discussed the biggest opportunities in Latin America presently, emphasizing that fintechs should focus on local issues rather than on big technology themes. They noted that Latin America has a great deal of variation and that it is problematic to discuss the region without focusing on the differences between nations as well as within nations. They also pointed to the low number of “banked” Latin Americans (approximately 30%) and examined ways to bring this number up.
Among the areas of opportunity, the panelists underscored remittances – noting that the corridor between the U.S. and Mexico is one of the biggest in the world. Helping small businesses get their operations running with sound basic business management services was also talked about, as was the challenge of overcoming outdated financial infrastructure. “If you understand the particularities of the market, and understand that it is a work in progress,” González-Estéfani said, “it is a land of opportunity, indeed.”
Turkey is the King of Cryptocurrencies in the Middle East according to a report from Chainalysis. The 2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report, published this month, noted that Turkey has the highest total transaction volume in cryptocurrencies in the MENA region. The report cites volatility in the country’s currency, the lira, as helping encourage more savers to adopt cryptocurrencies as an option to maintain their wealth.
The cryptocurrency market in the Middle East is not large. In fact, it is the smallest in the world second only to Africa’s. And while Turkey tops the list in MENA, it ranks 29th out of 154 countries in the Global Crypto Adoption Index. The report notes that Turkey currently has no cryptocurrency regulations, although the country’s Capital Markets Board is developing a framework.
Pakistan introduces online banking solution for expatriates, the Rohsan Digital Account.
Indian e-commerce deals website CashKaro raises $10 million in Series B.
Dialog Axiata, a mobile operator based in Sri Lanka, adopts the country’s national QR code to enable payments at more than 50,000 merchants.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Digital identity leader Jumiobrings its identity verification technology to Latin American delivery startup Rappi.
Oyster founder and CEO Vilash Poovala makes the case for a fintech operating system for Mexican SMEs. The company raised $14 million in seed funding this week.
dlocal, a cross-border payment solutions provider based in Uruguay, becomes the region’s latest unicorn courtesy of an $200 million investment round led by General Atlantic.
Asia-Pacific
U.S. and Vietnam-based fintech Fvndit raises $30 million in debt financing to support its P2P lending company, eLoan.
Malaysia’s Merchanttrade acquires digital remittance service provider Valyou.
Philippines-based fintech JazzyPay secures $500,000 in seed funding.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigeria’s OPay partners with WorldRemit to offer mobile money transfers.
TechCabal looks at the relationship between the growing influence of China on sub-Saharan Africa’s fintech industry.
Disrupt Africa profiles Kenyan fintech startup Zagace, which offers business management solutions via API to micro-businesses.
Central and Eastern Europe
Polish e-commerce platform Allegro readies for the country’s – and the region’s – biggest IPO.
Digitally or in-person, the live fintech demos continue to be one of the most popular and worthwhile features of our fintech conferences. This year was no different. FinovateFall Digital featured fewer demoing companies than in years past to better accommodate our COVID-induced, all-digital format. But, as always, the quality of demos was absolutely on point.
With that, let’s take a look at the companies that our attendees have awarded with Best of Show trophies at this year’s event.
Finzly with its BankOS open banking platform that helps banks innovate at speed by transitioning away from legacy technology. Video.
Horizn for its ability to help financial institutions accelerate digital adoption with customers and employees. Video.
Lendsmart for its AI-driven technology that solves for the lack of automation, transparency, and communication in the lending process. Video.
Monit for its finance application that gives small business leaders the insights and personalized guidance they need to manage their businesses successfully. Video.
Q2 for its online digital marketplace that makes collaboration between fintechs and financial institutions easier and more efficient. Video.
Thanks to all the companies that participated in FinovateFall Digital! And thank you, our FinovateFall Digital attendees, for making your voices heard and for being part of a very special event this year. We look forward to seeing many of you in a few months for FinovateWest!
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their five favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The five companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2020 conferences are below:
We opened Day Four of FinovateFall Digital with a panel looking at the future of innovation in a post-COVID world. Among the highlights of the conversation was a discussion of the challenge in distinguishing between permanent and temporary shifts in customer behavior as a result of the pandemic. Our Deep Dive also discussed the positives, negatives, and uncertainties about the rise of platforms as players on the fintech scene. Lastly, the group emphasized how the rise of borderlessness creates new challenges and opportunities for companies looking for both new customers and new markets.
Our second panel on Day Four looked at the phenomenon of Open Banking. Here our panelists considered open banking as a subset of open finance, and noted that while open banking began in many ways as a regulatory initiative, progress increasingly has been driven by consumer behavior. This last point was especially relevant for fans of open banking in the United States, where any effort to encourage cooperation between banks and third party financial services and fintech providers is more likely to come about via customer demand rather than by legislation from Washington.
Day Four also marked the beginning of our Discussion Days content which offered a variety of special, themed tracks covering topics in banking, financial crime, payments and digitization, wealthtech, and futuretech. With an eye toward how technology is shaping innovation in these areas, our Discussion Days tracks looked at the rise of banking-as-a-service, the role of biometrics and identity in an increasingly digitized society, and the latest applications of cutting edge technologies like conversational AI and natural language processing in fintech and financial services.
The fourth day of FinovateFall Digital also featured our Best of Show awards. Our attendees selected five companies – Finzly, Horizn, Lendsmart, Monit, and Q2 – to receive Finovate’s highest honor. Read more about our FinovateFall Digital Best of Show winners in our announcement post.
And, of course, we started the day with our Meet in the Cafe interactive morning hangout – sponsored by Google Cloud. This morning featured a number of interesting insights and observations from cafe visitors including the idea of data itself as being as important as any enabling technology like AI or the blockchain when it comes to fintech. Those gathered also discussed the idea of the pandemic as a Black Swan event that has helped smaller financial institutions, such as credit unions, get back in the business banking game.
Sound interesting? Join us tomorrow morning at 9:30am Eastern for our final installment at Meet at the Cafe!
A pair of recent Finovate alums have made the cut for the Fintech Europe Innovation Program sponsored by Plug and Play. Moxtra, most recently appearing on the Finovate stage in 2017, and Subaio, which made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope in Berlin, will join six other startups in the program’s sixth cohort since it was launched two years ago.
“Even though COVID-19 has brought uncertainty to the market, it has also given way to a wide range of opportunities,” Program Director of Plug and Play’s Fintech Europe program Fernando Zornig said. “Embracing innovation in finance is now more important than ever. We are seeing a lot of changes in Europe and I am confident that these solutions will help our corporate partners adapt to these changes faster.”
Companies participating in the program will engage with Plug and Play’s 13-member, financial institution partner community, which includes Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, and Raiffeisen Bank International. The startups will have the opportunity to pursue pilot projects as well as investment opportunities. Joining Moxtra and Subaio at the Frankfurt, Germany-based program are:
ABAKA
CARTO
Delio
Envio Systems
SESAMm
Vizolution
Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Moxtra offers a OneStop Customer Portal that gives businesses a “digital branch” through which they can engage and collaborate with customers. Moxtra’s solution provides an all-in-one suite of services including secure chat and video meetings, document collaboration and task management, video conferencing and transactions, and more. This spring, the company was named to Fintech Global’s second annual Wealthech 100 roster.
Subaio provides a white-label, subscription management platform that enables users to get a complete overview of their existing subscriptions. The technology makes it easy for users to cancel subscriptions they no longer want and keep track of any changes in the subscription services they wish to keep. Headquartered in Denmark and founded in 2016, Subaio has a number of live bank integrations of its solution, including a just-announced partnership with ABN Amro.
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Plug and Play is a worldwide innovation platform that offers accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and its own in-house venture capital team. More than 30,000 startups have benefitted from Plug and Play’s resources and support, with companies in its ecosystem raising $9+ billion in funding to date.
With welcoming remarks from Finovate VP Greg Palmer, Day Two of FinovateFall Digital got underway on Tuesday with a pair of addresses that looked at ways that fintechs and financial services companies can make the most out of the current health and economic challenges.
In his opening keynote, HSBC Head of Innovation Jeremy Balkin emphasized that understanding how the current environment has changed customer behavior is critical for businesses looking to adapt to both those changing behaviors and the needs they represent. This has been underscored during this quarantine/lockdown/shelter-in-place era. But Balkin is quick to note that these behavioral changes have impacted not only consumers, but workers and employees, also.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about the customer experience. We need to think about the employee experience, as well,” he said.
He also talked about the historical tendency to think of partnerships and “borrowing technology” as an initiative of last resort. Balkin pointed out that successful companies have turned this idea on its head to put collaboration and partnership at the forefront of their efforts to better serve their current clients and engage new potential customers.
Our Mastermind Keynote featured Adam Dell, Head of Product for Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Dell discussed how the adoption of digital tools is accelerating and compared the current moment to other recent instances of rapid technology adoption by the public. He pointed to a “vibrant demand for digital banking services,” and said that the winners will be those that can offer a delightful digital experience, a fair deal for the consumer, and the lowest cost means of delivery.
“Individuals who sit in the value chain and don’t create value really risk being eliminated,” he said.
Dell also discussed the opportunities created by the convergence of banking services and PFM. This comes as Goldman Sachs announces that Marcus will now feature a suite of PFM tools to complement its digital banking functionalities. Marcus Insights, as the new offering has been dubbed, was spearheaded by Dell, founder of PFM innovator Clarity Money which was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2018.
After our noon break for lunch and networking, we began the day’s round of technology demos.
Q2 demonstrated its partner marketplace and app store that solves the challenge of banks and fintechs working together.
Monit presented its mobile predictive cash flow and financial optimization solution that gives small business owners the personalized insights into and guidance on their finances they need to manage their business successfully.
payever demonstrated its solutions that help small businesses access and take advantage of the same technology that big companies do.
Obsecure showcased its technology that authenticates digital actions to ensure that digital experiences are as safe and simple as in-person interactions.
Mostly AI demonstrated its synthetic data platform that enables companies to take advantage of AI and Big Data while maintaining customer privacy protections.
The second round of demos slated for today– including Glia, Illuma Labs, Envestnet | Yodlee, Microsoft, and Horizn— have been rescheduled for tomorrow due to technical difficulties. Stay tuned for more details on timing.
We would be remiss not to mention that Day Two began with our new interactive, networking session, Meet at the Cafe. Sponsored by Google Cloud, our first edition Tuesday morning featured a spirited, interactive conversation on Klarna’s$650 million fundraising, the fate of challenger banks, and the impact of new customer behaviors in the age of COVID-19.
Meet at the Cafe returns Wednesday morning, with a special guest: David Andrzejek, Head of API Ecosystems with Google Cloud. So meet us at the cafe and join in the conversation!
On the day that Goldman Sachs announced that its digital banking solution Marcus would now feature a suite of PFM tools, FinovateFall Digital attendees were busy listening to the architect of this new feature – Adam Dell, Head of Product at Marcus – making the case for, among other things, the union of digital banking and PFM.
Successful digital financial services offerings in the post-COVID era will have three main features, Dell said. They will have a low cost means of delivery, they will represent a fair deal for the consumer, and they will provide what he called “delightful digital experiences.”
The new PFM solution, known as Marcus Insights, is currently available on iOS and will be made available on Android platforms and on the web soon. Marcus Insights aggregates the user’s financial information in a single dashboard, and offers tools and trackers to provide an easy-to-understand overview of their finances. After linking their checking, savings, loans, and/or investment accounts, users can analyze their spending in pre-set categories such as travel, shopping, and dining, as well as get instant insight into their spending and saving patterns, and their investment performance.
Interestingly, due to a restrictive data sharing agreement, users will not be able to link their Apple Cards to Marcus Insights. This is despite the fact that Apple is a Goldman partner. Also partnering with Goldman and Marcus on this initiative is Finovate alum Plaid, which was acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion at the beginning of the year.
Goldman launched Marcus, which was named after the investment bank’s founder Marcus Goldman, in 2016 and, just this year, unveiled a mobile app for the online bank. As of January, Marcus has $60 billion in customer deposits, and $5 billion in loans. CNBC reported that Marcus plans to add a digital checking account and an investing service in 2021.
In a financial world still dealing with near-zero interest rates – and less – word that Spain-based financial resource platform Finect has partnered with savings-as-a-solution innovator Raisin is great news for Finect’s two million plus users.
“Spanish families have accumulated a record figure of almost €900,000 million in bank deposits, but not always with a meaningful return. In fact, in many cases, they don’t even earn interest,” Finect CEO Antonia Botas explained. He called the partnership with Raisin part of Finect’s “broader objective: to bring the best products and services to Spanish savers, following the launch of our fund platform in July.”
Finect offers a way for consumers to shop for a wide variety of financial services and products. More than 10,000 savers have used the platform to find and request a financial advisor, and 100+ national and international investment firms leverage Finect’s platform to connect with clients and grow their businesses. Courtesy of the partnership with Raisin, Finect users will have access to 60+ deposit products from Raisin’s European partner banks, and give users the ability to earn as much as 1.41% on their savings.
“With the increase in savings volume since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, creating access to better savings options with higher yields is more important than ever,” Raisin Spain Country Manager Miguel Freire said. “Finect and Raisin share a mission to use digital technology to provide people in Spain with not only more information, but also more competitive options.”
German fintech Raisin, which began operations in the United States over the summer, began the year with the news that it has topped the €20 billion in deposits mark. Founded in 2012, Raisin has more than 280,000 customers across Europe, and more than 98 partner banks.
A Finovate alum since making its debut at FinovateFall in 2013, Finect was founded a year before, and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
“Buy Now Pay Later” may be the e-commerce rage du jour. But if you check in with the team from Inspirave, then you’ll hear about a better way for consumers to spend and save. The New York based company – which we profiled last fall – unveiled its SaveAway platform this week, enabling consumers to benefit from its unique blend of “financial planning with the path-to-purchase.”
“There has never been a better time to see Inspirave’s economically sustainable blueprint, propelled by greater purchasing power, striking such an inimitably strong chord with our growing community of SaveAway users and partners who recognize that what inspires our new-to-market innovations enabling greater financial wellness and social mobility is our steadfast mission to further human potential and prosperity for all,” Inspirave founder and CEO Om Kundu said in a statement.
SaveAway’s unification of micro-saving and social commerce offers consumers a way to save for the things they really value and avoid purchasing these same items with credit and accumulating unnecessary debt in the process. Aided by the insights, advice – and even material support – of friends and family, consumers using the SaveAway platform can leverage the collective wisdom of those who know them best and care about them the most to help them make financial decisions that are as responsible as they are affordable.
Miguel Sanchez and Philip Shearer, co-founders of diversity-focused accelerator MetaBronx, praised both the Inspirave’s innovation and its approach to spending and saving. “What made the SaveAway platform stand out in the top six companies chosen in 2020 derived from the breakthroughs in Inspirave’s patented technology as much as its novel operating model, pointing to the massive impact SaveAway is moving forward to uniquely deliver,” they said.
The company noted in its statement that those who signed up for Early Access to the SaveAway platform are eligible for a variety of bonuses, including referral credits and entry into a sweepstakes for a $1,000 contribution toward the winner’s SaveAway purchase-goal to be paid by the company. More than 12,000 people have signed up for Early Access to date.
Named a a Top Fintech Forward Company to Watch by American Banker and BAI, and A Finovate alum since 2016, Inspirave is headquartered in New York City.
What’s to like about FinovateFall Digital, our all-digital fintech conference starting Monday, September 14th and continuing through Friday, the 18th? A CEO from one of our demoing companies pointed out that one of the special things about this fall’s conference is that because the FinovateFall is all-digital, it enables people all over the world to participate as virtual attendees.
With this in mind, we wanted to use this week’s Finovate Global to highlight those companies from outside the United States that will be demonstrating their latest fintech innovations as part of our annual autumn event. Here’s hoping they bring a few friends from across the border – or from over the sea – to digitally join us!
Cinchy – Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Provides a real-time data collaboration platform to solve data integration, access, governance, and solution-delivery challenges. Finovate Best of Show Winner. Founded in 2014.
DQ Labs – Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Offers a unified suite of modules that enables companies to unlock the value in their data to gain new insights. Founded in 2019.
Horizn – Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Helps banks and financial institutions dramatically increase digital adoption. Finovate Best of Show winner. Founded in 2012.
Mostly AI– Vienna, Wien, Austria. Enables companies to unlock privacy-sensitive data assets while protecting privacy. Founded in 2017.
Payever – Hamburg, Germany. Offers a Commerce Operating System to help entrepreneurs start, run, and grow their businesses. Founded in 2013.
ScientiaConsulting – London, U.K. Leading fintech consulting and development firm in Europe. Founded in 2010.
Join us next week for Finovate’s latest all-digital fintech conference. Visit our registration page today and save your spot at our live and On Demand event.
Digital Currency Comeback?
Back in January Finovate Global took a look at the growing case for national digital currencies. We highlighted initiatives in countries as different as India and Japan, and underscored observations from Christine Lagarde (former head of the IMF and current president of the European Central Bank) in her address, “The Case for New Digital Currency”.
Now Ms. Lagarde is back in the news hinting at a near-term resolution to the question of a digital euro. In a speech this week at the Bundesbank’s conference on digital banking and payments, Lagarde argued that Europe must be wary of falling behind when it comes to the development of digital payment options, and that consideration of a national digital currency needs to be a part of that conversation.
“The Eurosystem has so far not made a decision on whether to introduce a digital euro,” Lagarde said. “But, like many other central banks around the world, we are exploring the benefits, risks, and operation challenges of doing so.” Lagarde added a taskforce on development of a digital euro is expected to release its findings “in the coming weeks.”
Open Banking All Over the World
We recently investigated the prospects for open banking in Australia. This week we share an overview of the state of open banking in Switzerland courtesy of Fintech Zoom’s Jung Min-Seo.
“Europe may moderately declare to be the cradle of open banking,” Min-Seo wrote, “however in contrast to within the E.U. the place members are obliged to implement PSD2, a directive meant to opening up cost transactions to non-banks and promote competitors, Switzerland has no such regulation in place.”
TechWire Asia looks at how Amazon is leveraging its relationship with India to grow its fintech offerings.
Proving that cash is still alive in India, RapiPay, a subsidiary of Capital India Finance, will install 500,000 micro ATMs in the country over the next two years.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Caribbean-based fintech WiPay teams up with Mastercard to expand digital payments in the region.
Austria’s Paysafecard announces expansion into Mexico.
Mexican fintech Ubank, which offers an automated savings solution, plans to expand to the United States.
Asia-Pacific
Revolut goes live in Japan.
Onfidobrings ID verification to migrant worker e-marketplace, MyCash Money, which serves workers in Malaysia and Singapore.
Backbasepartners with Vietnam’s Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank) to speed the institution’s digital transformation.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigerian fintechs Opay and PalmPay, along with South African e-payment firm, Yoco, are the only three Africa fintechs to earn spots on CB Insights’ 2020 Fintech Top 250.
Ozow, a digital payments company based in South Africa, launches its new payments platform.
Nigeria’s Sparkle announces plans for digital distribution of insurance solutions.
Central and Eastern Europe
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis praises Ukraine as the country with the greatest rate of cryptocurrency adoption in a new report.
Hungarian biometric payment startup PeasyPay announces plans to expand to Spain and the U.K.
Balkan Insight reviews the fintech ecosystem in Croatia.
Independent lockbox and electronic payments provider CheckAlt has acquired software and engineering company U.S. Dataworks from The Bankers Bank of Oklahoma. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
CheckAlt CEO and co-chairman Shai Stern put the purchase in the context of upcoming challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election. “Recognizing that the U.S. Postal Service is going to be overwhelmed and distracted with mail-in voting and other impediments to normal delivery, we must enable additional solutions for our clients to capture payments on-site, remotely, or through any one of our 13 lockbox processing centers around the country,” Stern said.
“Moreover, between the hundreds of financial institutions that both CheckAlt and U.S. Dataworks serve directly, we now have further reach to offer our full suite of payment solutions which include not only paper processing but as well our Catch! product and card processing services.”
With more than 300 financial institution partners, CheckAlt offers financial institutions and commercial clients a range of lockbox and payment processing solutions. These include a full set of check imaging products that provide consolidated item processing across all channels and points of capture: mobile, ATM, and in-branch. The company also offers standard payment processing solutions and services such as credit card processing, integrated receivables, and merchant RDC.
The U.S. Dataworks acquisition marks CheckAlt’s third in six years. The company bought ERAS, a security systems provider, in 2014, and acquired financial services provider Klik Technologies, two years later. CheckAlt’s acquisition announcement comes at the end of a busy summer for the Los Angeles, California-based company. CheckAlt announced an expansion of its partnership with Pawtucket Credit Union ($2 billion in assets) in June, teamed up with Five Star Bank of California ($2 billion in assets) in July, and collaborated with NXTsoft’s OmniConnect to enhance its ability to integrate with credit unions, core providers, and banks.
Founded in 2004, CheckAlt made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall. The company demonstrated its LoanPay solution, which enables financial institutions to accept a wide variety of loan payments – from auto and business to mortgage and personal – from their customers. The solution enables customers to use debit, credit, and checking accounts to make both one-time and recurring payments in person, via mobile, or online.
London-based identity verification platform Sumsub (which stands for “Sum & Substance”) raised $6 million in Series A funding this week. The round brings the company’s total funding to more than $7.5 million. With the additional capital, the company plans to intensify its product development initiatives, expand into new markets, and pursue its goal of more than 1,000 new SME and enterprise customers by the end of next year.
Sumsub co-founder and CEO Andrew Sever highlighted the compliance and risk management questions that global businesses face when operating in multiple jurisdictions, and pointed to his company’s technology as an answer. “We solve the issue by presenting teams with a single solution to drive customers and enhanced due diligence from one place, customizing the onboarding flow to any jurisdiction or requirement.”
Sumsub provides a single, AI-powered identity verification and compliance risk management toolkit that automates the identity verification process and boosts conversion rates to as high as 97%. The company’s technology offers accelerated ID verification, digital fraud detection, and compliance for businesses in more than 200 markets around the world such as the U.K., North America, Germany, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and has verified “tens of millions of users” since launch in 2015.
The Series A was led by MetaQuotes, a financial trading software development company. The round featured the participation of several existing investors, as well as individual investor Ilia Perekopsky, VP of Telegram messenger.
Earlier this year, Sumsub announced that it and another ID verification company Veriff, had partnered with international money transfer firm TransferGo. TransferGo Compliance Manager Milda Mačiulaitytė said Sumsub’s platform would enable TransferGo to not only deliver a “tailored money transfer experience” but also to make sure that experience provided in a compliant and secure way across all regions.
