By Esther Alexander (ABUJA)-
Smile Identity announced on Thursday that it has raised $7 million in Series A funding to help Africans establish their identity online by integrating identity verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance infrastructure throughout the continent.
The investment, according to Ashiwel Okang, Head of Marketing at Smile Identity, is the largest ever made into an African–focused identity verification company, and it is significant for a variety of reasons.
“In Africa, identity is not just a risk and compliance function, it is a key building block for commerce. Knowing that you can trust the other party allows you to do business offline and online; identity is essential in accessing financial accounts, social services, loans, SIM cards, and property.
“All of these activities and more are either moving online or have already done so in pursuit of consumers. Within the next 10 years, 16% of the world’s Internet users will reside in Africa. For many businesses, this presents a new channel to enable rapid scaling, and an enormous opportunity for growth.
“The World Bank estimates that the Internet economy contributed US$115 billion to Africa’s economy in 2020, with the potential to grow six fold to more than US$700 billion by 2050. But this is only possible if the enabling infrastructure is built,“ he said.
According to Okang, an estimated 500 million Africans (approximately one-third of the population) still struggle to establish their identification in order to acquire access to services and take use of the opportunities provided by the Internet economy.
“Africans spend an inordinate amount of time trying to verify their identities when traveling or doing business, even when they hold formal IDs. This is a preventable waste of time and a hindrance to economic activity.
“Thankfuly, things are changing. Building on the good work that forward-thinking governments and nonprofits are already doing, Smile Identity is building a technology layer that makes Africa’s new and old identity systems accessible and useful for the next generation of African technology companies, while maintaining best in class security and enabling local consent and compliance standards.
“At Smile Identity, we believe one of the keys to unlocking Africa’s inherent potential is universal digital identity. Solving this will lead to faster economic growth for Africa.
“This is why our new round of funding is so important. This new capital will help us expand into more markets, add support for more ID types, build custom consent layers compatible with local data privacy legislation, support users without smart-phones, and hire more Engineers across Africa to help us achieve our vision.
“All across the continent, from Lagos to Kampala, and from Cairo to Cape Town, we are seeing a rising wave of African startups built by Africans for Africa begin to gain momentum as they take on some of the continent’s toughest challenges. These startups are betting on the massive potential of Africa, and at Smile Identity, we are building for them,“ he noted.
Smile Identity is building the backbone of the Internet economy in Africa, facilitating an ecosystem of trusted relationships between businesses and consumers, and standardizing identity verification across the continent by providing a simple, highly effective, Africa-focused identity solution, according to him.
“Our platform combines identity validation with proprietary face verification and aliveness checks to support non-surveillance, consent-based financial inclusion and access.
“At Smile Identity, we believe that any African should be able to easily prove their identity, anywhere in the world and that your access to a modern digital lifestyle should not depend on the origin of your ID Card or IP address,” he said.