In the current internet age, when data breaches, identity thefts and misuse of personal digital belongings has become rather common, it is imperative to have a robust tech in place to secure our digital identities. One such attempt is being made by London-based Yoti, and these attempts have helped the startups raised a fresh £8 million round. The company is now valued at £82 million.
This funding round follows a £8m round at a £40m post money equity valuation in January 2018. Since then, Yoti has expanded its team in Bangalore and in the USA, exceeded 4.7 million app downloads, and developed a private and secure browser-based age verification solution, ProveMyAge.
This latest funding round follows some key milestones for Yoti since it launched in November 2017, including a variety of partnerships spanning retail, government, travel and social media. These include:
- Heathrow Airport – working with Yoti to explore biometric travel for passengers
- NCR – using Yoti to improve age-verification at self-checkouts
- Yubo – deploying Yoti to verify the age of its users and safeguard young people online.
According to Shantaram Jonnalagadda, Country Head for India, Yoti, “ Utility across both public and private sectors is key for driving adoption and awareness of digital identities, so Yoti is already working in a variety of industries including retail, finance, hospitality, government, dating sites and travel. With the infusion of capital, we can continue to develop more partnerships and strengthen our operations globally.”
Last year the company was selected by the Government of Jersey as its digital identity provider, with 10% of the Jersey adult population now using Yoti, a percentage expected to climb rapidly over the next year. In addition, over two thousand convenience stores throughout the UK are fighting underage sales and the rise of fake IDs by using Yoti’s digital identity app to verify the age of customers for age-restricted goods.
Yoti has developed a proprietary AI age estimation technology, Yoti Age Scan, along with developing several licensable IP products around anti-spoofing in the past year. The company has also signed the Safe Face Pledge to demonstrate its commitment towards a fair and transparent approach towards biometrics and AI.
Yoti’s age estimation technology is being used by social networking app Yubo to estimate the age of individuals, and flag any accounts where the person appears to have significantly misstated their age; a vital step to help safeguard young people online. Yubo has already run over 22 million checks using Yoti Age Scan, and tens of thousands of users have already verified their Yubo profile with the Yoti app.
