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Nigeria’s Youverify Makes Strategic Move, Launches Comprehensive Compliance Products in Kenya

May 30, 2023

Youverify, a regtech company that specializes in developing comprehensive global compliance products for businesses, has officially made its entry into Kenya. This strategic move is part of the company’s plan to expand its presence in international markets. Prior to this, Youverify had already expanded to countries such as Ghana, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, and Uganda. In August of the previous year, the company successfully raised $1 million in seed extension funding, bringing the total size of its funding round to $2.5 million.

As a leading provider of innovative compliance solutions, Youverify is dedicated to transforming the way organizations navigate the intricacies of regulatory requirements. During the launch event, Gbenga Odegbami, CEO and Co-Founder of Youverify, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “Expanding our products and solutions to Kenya is a strategic move that has always been in the works. After conducting a thorough analysis of Kenya’s compliance landscape, we firmly believe that the market is ready for our superior technology.” He further emphasized the company’s vision to drive global financial innovation and revolutionize the approach to compliance for businesses in Kenya.

When Youverify initially launched in Nigeria in 2018, its primary offering was an API for address and identity verification, which was utilized by various financial institutions. Over the years, the company expanded its range of solutions to include Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB), Know Your Transaction (KYT), Know Your Employee (KYE), Adverse Media Screening, and Risk Intelligence Solution. This growth in offerings enabled Youverify to provide comprehensive compliance solutions to its clients.

Dimitri Kanellopolus, Chief Executive (EEMEEA, APAC) at Youverify, who was present at the launch event, expressed excitement about extending the company’s products and services to Kenya. He stated, “We are thrilled to bring our products and services to Kenya. We have long been interested in the country’s rapidly evolving financial sector and its commitment to regulatory reform. This creates the ideal environment for regtech service providers like us to thrive and empower Kenyan businesses to efficiently meet regulatory requirements and confidently scale their operations.”

Youverify’s decision to enter the Kenyan market reflects its commitment to addressing the increasing demand for effective regulatory solutions in emerging economies. The company aims to equip Kenyan businesses with the necessary tools and expertise to navigate the complex regulatory landscape, fostering trust, transparency, and sustainable growth.

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Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard

Nigerian Identity Startup Youverify Raises Additional $1M Seed To Expand Across Africa

August 3, 2022

Youverify, a Know Your Customer (KYC) and other compliance procedure automation company with offices in Lagos and San Francisco, has announced that it has secured a $1 million seed round extension after initially raising a $1.5 million round in 2020, bringing its total seed raised capital to $2.5 million.

The two investors who co-led its initial seed round of fundraising, Africa-focused VCs Orange Ventures and LoftyInc Capital, led the most recent round of funding. Octerra Capital, Plug & Play Venture, Syntax Ventures, HTTP Investors, Afer Group, and Fronesyz Capital all contributed further funding.

Over the next 18 months, Youverify wants to reach 30 countries, with a particular emphasis on Africa’s francophone, southern, and eastern areas, where it will actively recruit, according to Odegbami. It also has plans to increase the number of IDs it can examine from 400 million to 2 billion, as well as develop new automated compliance products for the gambling, travel, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors.

Youverify Identity — *The YouVerify team. Courtesy: YouVerify*

Why The Investors Invested

The startup has recorded considerable traction since it was founded. According to the company’s CEO, Gbenga Odegbami, the company has consistently pushed to offer more goods to increase its product reach to a sizable number of financial institutions across the continent. As a result, the business has developed a reputation that distinguishes it from rivals based on the services it provides.

Odegbami claimed that Youverify’s customer base rose by 300 percent to service more than 400 banks and high-growth startups as a result of diversifying its clientele base and rising demand for its KYC products.

More than 5 million applications have been handled through Youverify’s application procedures over the past 24 months, assisting its customers with remote onboarding of ride-hailing drivers, the sale of financial items, and staff hiring. The company’s YouID digital identity platform attracted more than 500,000 new users, and 600 service providers from around the continent are waiting to join its marketplace.

The Lagos-based identity verification business surpassed a $1 million ARR in 2017, claims Odegbami.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Youverify was established and introduced to the Nigerian market in 2018. It initially offered numerous financial institutions an API for address and identity verification. Other KYC products have since been added, and it now has expansion plans for additional markets like Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.

Gbenga claims that the startup didn’t begin working with fintech companies until last year. At first, the majority of its clients were banks, large firms like Bolt, and governmental organisations. The platform’s identity verification and KYC products are used by over two-thirds of Nigeria’s commercial banks, including Standard Chartered, Standard Bank, and Fidelity Bank.

The Youverify OS (YVOS), which offers a single platform for automating due diligence and combines risk and compliance management with its core identity verification platform to provide these fintech companies with an enterprise-grade compliance solution, was however introduced by the company in an effort to serve more customers.

Businesses may use a drag-and-drop builder with its other product, vFORM, a low- and no-code tool, to design a unique approach for onboarding new clients.

Youverify identity Youverify identity

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Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

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