Grace Ashiru
Smile Identity, a Nairobi-based identity verification company, has raised $20 million in a Series B fundraising round headed by Norrsken22 and Costanoa Ventures.
Smile Identity specializes in identity verification and KYC compliance and employs a portfolio of tools to assist clients in avoiding fraud and quickly onboarding consumers.
Among these are identity verification, document verification, user onboarding, checks for fraud, and checks to see if the user is still alive. Biometric deduplication is used on the platform. When customers sign up for the podium, they take a selfie with their ID to make it easier to check their Identity.
Since it started in 2018, Smile Identity has raised more than $30 million. The company’s growth has been driven by rising demand in the fintech sector, which has led to a need for better KYC and identity verification services across Africa.
The KYC verification start-up does between 2 and 2.5 million identity checks monthly and has doubled its client base since 2021. It now works with over 100 businesses in banking, fintech, education, agriculture, and e-commerce.
The company has also grown its Business Verification (KYB) solution, which offers 30 detailed business lookups, and its sales have tripled in the past year.
With the money, Smile Identity will be able to grow into more markets, create standards for consumer consent, and enforce data protection laws in Africa.
