We’re investing in ID Pal

We're investing in ID Pal

It is clear to everyone that post the financial crisis in 2008, there has been a wave of creative destruction to the banking & financial services industry.

Running in parallel to this was the rise of the sharing and on-demand economy powered by smartphone adoption in hypergrowth. Knowing your customer and correctly verifying them seamlessly through a fast and great customer experience is a vital service for multiple industries.

The ability to accurately verify identity alongside a transaction is key to detecting and preventing fraud, as well as a legal obligation for financial services. KYC (know your customer), a process that is required to begin a money transfer, can be performed in a bricks & mortar location, where they can verify documents and check a driver’s license or passport in person. This requires physical visits when it should be a frictionless process taking seconds online. As banks focus on bringing all of their customers online to level the playing field with the challengers, it’s become another bottleneck.

Startups often can build verification functionality themselves; leading to very large teams with scalability pitfalls. Large tech operators in the sharing economy have had to build huge trust & safety teams to verify users and to fight duplication. Operators can complement this with third-party services in a highly competitive market segment, but despite this, the function itself remains a significant thorn in the side.

On the consumer side, online verification services can be frustrating if it just isn’t working perfectly and fast…and users can have difficulty getting verified, while often encountering KYC backlogs — with some platforms giving waiting time lasting weeks for some users to get verified. Delays drive consumers to move on fast, so the key lies in the ease of use, speed and accuracy of the product.

We love the team’s focus on creating a simple yet highly accurate product. The progress that Colum, James, and Rob have made in the last year has been fantastic and we are looking forward to supporting them in the next chapter of their journey.