Onfido

Onfido is a technology company that helps businesses verify people's identities using a photo-based identity document, a selfie and artificial intelligence algorithms. This is how they help companies like Revolut, Zipcar and Bitstamp to onboard customers remotely and securely. Onfido was founded in July 2012 by three former students at Oxford University- Husayn Kassai, Eamon Jubbawy, and Ruhul Amin. Onfido is headquartered in London and has over 650 employees in offices in San Francisco, Albuquerque, New York, Lisbon, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Singapore.

Husayn Kassai, Eamon Jubbawy, and Ruhul Amin first met when they were students at Oxford University. Kassai met Jubbawy when they co-ran the university's Oxford Entrepreneurs society. At one point, the three entered discussions of forming a new company after they had identified the inefficient process of getting identity checks completed in order to secure jobs in the finance industry. Each went through a check that took from 2–6 weeks. The idea of Onfido came about to solve the inefficient process of identity checks. They wanted to create a solution that set a new standard by moving away from manual checks to a technological solution based on machine learning. The idea was built with four key aims: to help more people gain access to digital services, to protect businesses from fraud, to create a better user experience, and to uphold user privacy. They decided to build a technological solution to the problem and secured seed funding of £20,000 from Oxford University's Said Business School, launching Onfido in August 2012. The three secured initial deals with around 10 small companies. In January 2013, Onfido secured its first major client, Hassle.com. In February 2015, Onfido raised $4.5 million from a Series A funding round to help expand the business. By April 2016 it had done almost ten million identity and background checks. The most recent funding round in April 2020 raised $100 million from TPG Growth. While initially focused on doing identity and background checks for businesses hiring large numbers of permanent staff and contractors, by September 2016 it had shifted its focus to financial services and e-commerce companies. Onfido helps them to do this without onerous identity verifications. The company also wants to help get people who don't currently have bank accounts into the banking system.

Their mission is to create a more open world, where identity is the key to access.

Onfido verifies the world’s identities. They build AI that compares IDs to facial biometrics and businesses onboard more customers. Their vision is “an open world where identity is the key to access”.