Smile Identity, who claim to be Africa’s leading KYC onboarding and identity verification platform, recently announced the successful completion of its Series B funding round, raising $20 million. As countries like Nigeria attempt to launch digital currencies, and ACRE Africa rolls out mircro-insurance products to farmers, the issue of verifying ID will become part of so many everyday transactions – not just insurance.
Led by Costanoa and Norrsken22, with participation from Commerce Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Two Culture Capital, Valuestream Ventures, Intercept Ventures, Latitude, Future Africa, and 500 Fintech. Lexi Novitske from Norrsken22 will also join Smile Identity’s Board as part of the Series B. This brings Smile Identity’s total funding to $31 million, including $7 million raised in their Series A funding round in 2021.
Smile Identity will use the funding from its Series B round to expand its product and engineering team, accelerating the development and specialisation of its AI-powered biometrics, document verification, anti-fraud and compliance solutions tailored for African markets. The company is growing its existing teams in East, West, and Southern Africa and completing its Pan-African reach with plans to enter Francophone and Arab-speaking markets through localised sales and support. In addition, the company will continue working closely with regulators and ID authorities to build consumer consent standards into software, enforce African data protection laws, and share data on fraud and financial inclusion trends.
“We believe the majority of people are honest,” said Mark Straub, CEO and co-founder of Smile Identity, “the challenge in the digital age is to prove this, regardless of how a user onboards – whether via agents, apps, tablets, the web, blockchains or paper forms.”
“We are thrilled to have the support of our partners and investors as we solve this problem across IDs, devices and compliance regimes to ensure Africans are among the most trusted consumers in the world.”
Since their Series A funding round, Smile Identity has completed 50M KYC checks for hundreds of partners across the African continent, helping them to scale their businesses by mitigating fraud and onboarding new customers seamlessly. The company offers global coverage with its Document Verification product and has added a Business Verification or “Know-Your-Business” (KYB) solution to its offerings. In addition, Smile Identity has expanded into South Africa and Uganda and opened offices in London and Cape Town, demonstrating its commitment to connecting Africans to global opportunities.
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