Services pertaining to digital identity are steadily gaining traction over the last few years and one of the entities offering products in the space has confirmed massive funding round, highlighting the size of the market and its future ambitions. Jumio has successfully created a unique platform that offers varied digital identity-related technologies and tools, with the use of machine learning, biometrics, big data, computer vision and much more for examining log-ins, IDs and also in combating any suspicious transactions along with keeping identity theft at bay.
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It has closed its funding round of $150 million as per lundentechcrunch. The company is based in Palo Alto and has confirmed that it will be deploying these funds for creating more such tools on its dedicated platform while also focusing on growing its customer base. The primary model for the company is business-to-business (B2B) at present and it offers tools for customers in the enterprise space such as HSBC for digital identity management and verification purposes. Some of its investment areas will be an expansion of AI-based abilities with a view toward combating money laundering and also developing B2C (business to customer) solutions with tools, data and customer networks that will help people manage their identities more efficiently online.
CEO at the company, Robert Prigge, stated that identity is the pillar of the internet as opposed to anonymity. He also stated that digitization has rapidly spurred this evolution while talking about how this shift has been massive over the last two years or so. He added that people originally wished to conceal themselves behind a layer of anonymity although identity has now become the cornerstone of all activity, especially for remotely developing trust throughout the digital banking or social networking segments.
Anonymity will still exist although the template will be unique, i.e. data protection guidelines will ensure that people can be privately active with dedicated tools and the UK and other nations are spreading it out even more with upcoming regulations for ensuring that services that manage/use digital identities are implemented through a common mechanism and with user involvement alongside. Jumio is thus faced with the prospect of pushing identity mechanisms forward while also ensuring adherence to regulations for privacy protection.
Great Hill Partners has put up the funding and will be joining other company shareholders like Millennium and Centana. Jumio has already scaled revenues of $100 million last year and this is the first such funding for the company over almost five years, right after it raised $16 million in 2016. This could also become the single biggest funding round for any company in the digital identity space. Several such start-ups have launched in the anti-money laundering and digital identity segments including Payfone, ForgeRock, Onfido, ComplyAdvantage, Zeotap, Truework, and Ripjar among others. All these startups have raised sizable funding after launch as well. Prigge has stated that the company has close to 1,000 customers including large enterprises like United Airlines, HSBC, Singtel, the noted telecom player, and more.
The company is functioning in 200 nations. Jumio first launched by raising $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors such as Eduardo Saverin as an early entity in the mobile payments segment, using technology for using the camera for scanning IDs and cards with a view toward enabling payments. This business had its ups and downs and had its bankruptcy filing in 2016. It was bought by Centana for approximately $850,000. Jumio has revamped its business ever since.
