Jumio Lands $150 Million To Expand Digital ID Verification, AML Compliance

Claiming the largest funding round ever in the digital identity space, Jumio announced Tuesday (March 23) that it has secured a $150 million investment from private equity firm Great Hill Partners.

A statement from Jumio said the funding will accelerate the assignment of additional resources to automate its identity verification solutions, expand the breadth of its KYX identity platform and grow its suite of anti-money laundering (AML) compliance services.

Great Hill Partners’ Nick Cayer and Matt Vettel will join Jumio’s board of directors. Great Hill has substantial recent investing experience in the cybersecurity, compliance and financial technology sectors including AffiniPay, Confirmation, MineralTree, Secureworks and Versapay.

Jumio CEO Robert Prigge said the investment speaks to the global importance of establishing a user’s identity remotely to defend against fraud and financial crime, comply with know your customer (KYC) and AML regulations and boost online conversions.

“Jumio’s innovations helped establish the identity verification market, and the need to establish someone’s digital identity remotely has never been greater,” said Prigge. “Nick, Matt and the Great Hill team bring tremendous expertise and a strong track record of innovation and strategic leadership, so we are excited to partner with them as we continue to scale.”

The funding follows an active year for Jumio in 2020, during which it reported record revenues, volumes and automation breakthroughs. In September, it launched the KYX platform, which combines data from a variety of sources to build a complete digital profile of online users. Later that month, Jumio acquired the AML platform from Beam Solutions, a San Francisco-based startup focused on transaction monitoring, case management and KYC.

The company most recently reported to PYMNTS that it found new account fraud based on identity verification fell 23.2 percent globally in 2020 in contrast to 2019. The company also looked into fraudulent attempts to open a new account with a modified government-issued ID in addition to a corroborating selfie. Selfie-based fraud encompasses illegitimate attempts to harness an image or video in lieu of a legitimate selfie to corroborate a digital identity.

The company said selfie-based fraud rates were five times above ID-based fraud. Those results indicate an increasing quantity of stolen ID documents available to buy on the dark web and emphasize the need for financial institutions to find out if an ID is legitimate.