Gbenga Odegbami - Afrikan Heroes

YouVerify, Orange Digital Ventures Close $1.5 Million Seed Investment

March 12, 2020

Nigerian based identity verification startup closed a $1.5 million seed round of equity financing from Orange Digital Ventures this week, opening doors for the firm’s next level of projects aimed at expanding its offerings across industry. The company with headquarters in Lagos Nigeria is a verification startup that helps automate due diligence and compliance by using data-driven decisions for the financial services, and telecommunication industries. Co-founded by its CEO Gbenga Odegbami, Youverify provides API for address and identity verification in Africa. The company has the ambition to help organisations use data and its insight to make automated and efficient business decisions. It also aims to help speed up previously manual back-office processes.

This round was led by Orange Digital Ventures Africa (ODV), Orange group’s dedicated Euro 50 million investment initiative in the Middle East and Africa region. It was joined by Loftyinc Afropreneurs Fund, a West African early-stage technology fund that has previously backed top startups such as Andela, Flutterwave and Reliance HMO.

Speaking on the development, YouVerify CEO Gbenga Odegbami said that this constitutes a unique opportunity for the company to take further our ambition to simplify and secure its client’s internal processes, whether in the recruitment of staff, customer onboarding etc. “Our ambition is to be the leading African player in verifying people and companies’ identities by making data protection and security the core of our proposal”, he added. The investors are hopeful the raise will help Youverify accelerate growth and execution of its technology roadmap to empower Africans with their identity most reliably and securely.

According to Grégoire de Padirac, Investment manager at ODV,“the matters of security and access to financial or telecommunications services should never be at odds. Telecom operators like Orange are at the forefront of these transformation challenges. We are proud to support Youverify, which intends to resolve this triple objective of fostering financial inclusion, strengthening security and preserving user rights over their data”.

On his part, Idris Bello, Managing Partner, Loftyinc said “we are excited to back Youverify in its quest. The investment fits into our thesis of backing strong local founding teams with a bias towards execution, leveraging technology in solving key problems across Africa’s large markets. We have worked closely with Gbenga and his team over the past year and are excited to joined ODV and others on this journey.”

Since its commercial launch in 2018 in Lagos, Youverify has processed registrations and verification for some of the biggest banks, Fintech platforms and on-demand platforms in Nigeria. Youverify’s solution allows organisations to bring together siloed data sources which can include identity data, educational data, addressing data, credit history, facial image and others to drive a customisable decision-making process to seamlessly onboard customers in a secure and regulatory compliant manner.

In Africa where the due diligence process is traditionally arduous and manual, Youverify offers a simple, nimble, easy-to-adopt, and cost-effective solution to transform the customer onboarding decisions and streamline this process while reducing fraud, manual processes and cost.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Nigerian ID Verification Startup, Youverify Secures $1.5 Million In Seed Funding

March 11, 2020

Orange Digital Ventures (ODV) is committing its second investment in 2020 in Africa in the Nigerian startup Youverify, after leading a $2 million seed round in the Ethiopian edtech startup Gebeya earlier in the year.

“This constitutes a unique opportunity for us to take further our ambition to simplify and secure our client’s internal processes, whether in the recruitment of staff, customer onboarding etc. Our ambition is to be the leading African player in verifying people and companies’ identities by making data protection and security the core of our proposal,’’ Youverify’s CEO, Gbenga Odegbami said in an interview.

Here Is The Deal

Although led by Orange Digital Ventures Africa (ODV), a $57 million investment vehicle that targets Africa and the Middle East, Loftyinc Afropreneurs Fund, an African early-stage investment fund also participated.
With its latest seed funding, ODV and Loftyinc Afropreneurs Fund join Village Capital and Chinook Capital as investors in the startup.
The startup plans to use the fund to accelerate its growth and expand to other markets.
Since its launch in Lagos in 2018, Youverify has already performed more than 300,000 customer registrations and verifications for some of Nigeria’s largest banks and financial companies.

Why The Investors Invested

Orange Digital Ventures is a 150 million euro technology investment fund with an international focus. It finances innovative startups in the fields of connectivity and networks, SaaS for businesses (cloud, AI, big data, cybersecurity, etc.), FinTech and the Internet of Things. Supported by the Orange group, the fund offers “smart money” by facilitating the creation of synergies with its numerous business units and its 263 million customers in 29 countries.

‘‘The development of financial services and mobile payments continues to accelerate on the continent. To support players, fintech and large groups, in a context where verification tasks are still particularly complex and manual, the rise of RegTech such as Youverify is a key issue for the market,’’ Orange Digital Ventures noted in a statement.

“Security and access to financial or telecommunication services should never be at odds. Telephone operators like Orange are at the forefront of these transformation challenges. We are proud to support Youverify, which intends to resolve this triple objective of contributing, supporting financial inclusion, strengthening security and preserving users’ rights over their data, ” Grégoire de Padirac, Investment Manager at ODV further added.

A Look At What Youverify Does

Founded in 2017, Youverify is a business-to-business service that allows companies to verify the identity of people.

“Youverify is an API service whereby we’ve aggregated all the existing government IDs,” CEO Gbenga Odegbami said on the sidelines of TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin in 2019. “From one source with ten lines of code, you can verify any government-issued ID quickly.”

“We’re building an infrastructure across Africa for verification So we want to make it very easy, a modern infrastructure so you can verify so that you can verify individuals and their addresses easily.”

Youverify disclosed that “some of the biggest banks, fintech platforms and on-demand platforms in Nigeria” use its API.

In a press release, the company said it has the ambition to help organisations use data and its insight to make automated and efficient business decisions and speed up previously manual back-office processes.

Currently based in Nigeria, Youverify plans to expand its services to other African countries. “Nigeria is a very big pie, but we plan to start with five countries in 2020 and then we take from there,” Odegbami said in an interview.

Youverify is not the only startup trying to fix Nigeria’s identity verification problems. VerifyMe offers a similar service to banks to power their Know-Your-Customer (KYC) needs. The company raised an undisclosed Series A funding in January.

Identity verification is a serious challenge on the African continent. In Nigeria, Youverify’s main market, there is no single important national identity system.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com