Digital identity company Yoti has raised £8m of new equity investment from existing private investors, employees and Robin Tombs, Yoti’s co-founder and chief executive.
The free app allows users to prove their identity to businesses and people, and prove their age online and to purchase age-restricted goods.
Its app can also be used to verify the details of people online, login securely to websites without having to remember passwords and sign documents online using verified digital identities.
The London headquartered firm said it will use the funds to continue to grow its consumer network, invest in product development, and expand its operations globally.
Having recently expanded its team in Bangalore and the US, it has now developed a private and secure browser-based age verification solution, ProveMyAge, which it hopes will help websites with adult content to comply with the age verification requirements of the upcoming Digital Economy Act.
This latest funding gives the firm a post money equity valuation of £82m, following two previous successful investment rounds.
Robin Tombs, Co-Founder and CEO of Yoti said, “Over the past few years we have invested about £65m to develop our privacy-preserving identity system, giving individuals a safe and secure way to prove their age or identity for free.
“I’m really proud of what the team has achieved so far, including working with the Government of Jersey, partnering with Heathrow Airport and NCR, developing our AI age estimation technology – which lets individuals prove their age without sharing any personal details – and most recently launching Yoti to local convenience stores nationwide to help tackle the increasingly quality and accessibility of fake IDs.
“I’m also very excited by the potential of our Social Impact work, which aims to develops solutions for grassroots, local communities and developing countries; helping to address the 1.1 billion people around the world who do not have any form of identification.
“This latest funding round will help us continue to grow our consumer network and work with businesses globally to give as many people as possible a simpler and safer way of proving who they are.”