We have raised $20 million in funding in series B - To make Africans the most trusted users

Today, I am thrilled to announce that our company, Smile Identity, the leading provider of digital identity verification solutions for Africa, has secured $20 million in Series B funding.

The round was co-led by Costanoa and Norrsken22. Additional new investments came from Commerce Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Two Culture Capital, and Latitude. Existing investors Valuestream Ventures, Intercept Ventures and Future Africa also joined the round. Lexi Novitske from Norrsken22 will also be joining our Board.

Building on the success of our Series A, this round brings our total funding to over $30 million since our founding.

Achievements since Series A

More important than any funding milestones has been our evolution from a startup into a multi-national that serves as a trusted partner for our clients, local and global, fintech and enterprise alike.

We’ve doubled our customer base and tripled revenues in the past year. As highlighted in our 2022 annual KYC report, Smile Identity has now completed an estimated 50 million KYC and identity verification checks for hundreds of clients, solidifying our position as Africa’s experts in digital identity.

The company has integrations to more ID databases than any other KYC provider in Africa. It provides compliance and anti-fraud solutions to many of the continent’s champions in banking, lending, payments, remittances, cryptocurrency and the shared economy.

In addition to growing the business, in the last twelve months, we’ve announced the following:

• Document Verification – allowing us to provide global ID coverage.
• Know Your Business (KYB) – an API to check information on companies, directors, and beneficial owners.
• New offices in London and Cape Town – expanding our reach and in-person support for our clients.

Plans for the Series B

We are humbled by the support of our customers and investors and are excited to invest further in three areas:

1. Engineering and Product innovation 
We are expanding our product & engineering team in Africa and globally, accelerating the development and specialization of our AI-powered biometrics, document verification, anti-fraud solutions and data access.

2. International Expansion and Localization 
We are completing our Pan-African reach by building new teams in Francophone and North Africa, focusing on local language support, compliance and UX optimization.

3. Long-term commitments to identity ecosystems 
We are deepening our commitment to the local ecosystem by enforcing African data protection laws with pre-built consent layers and integration methods that fulfil local requirements; and by sharing anonymised metrics and insights on fraud trends across Africa. 
We are also increasing the amount of free credits available to startups, to help them speed up compliance and stop fraud on Day 1.

Long-term

At Smile Identity, we believe everyone deserves access to a digital future, regardless of the origin of their ID card or IP address. We are dedicated to securing the infrastructure for Digital Africa, making this ‘future’ a reality today.

Our dream is to make Africans among the most trusted consumers in the world. We believe this is possible by combining best-in-class technology with good policy frameworks and modern identity infrastructure. If this sounds like an exciting vision, join us!