Irish digital identity startup valid8Me secures €12.5m investment to increase headcount, accelerate growth

valid8Me, the digital identity SAAS platform, announced that Grant Thornton Ireland are investing €12.5million in the company. Valid8Me allows both individuals and corporations to securely store, share and manage their key Know-Your-Customer related data. valid8Me pioneered and champions reusable digital identity, helping businesses streamline proof of identity and onboarding processes with simplicity, certainty and control.

Patrick Horgan, CEO, valid8Me: “The idea that consumers repeatedly share their most sensitive data, often through insecure channels, to prove their identity is archaic. Valid8Me is fundamentally different, we empower consumers to maintain a reusable digital identity that can be used universally across all industries. Our platform addresses an enormous challenge for businesses by enabling enhanced AML compliance in a radically future proof and cost-effective way, whilst offering their clients a more secure and convenient experience. This investment from Grant Thornton Ireland, combined with their global reach and multisector expertise, will act as a transformational partner in accelerating valid8Me’s ambitious high-growth strategy. Grant Thornton truly understands valid8Me’s vision to become the universal defacto standard for digital identity globally.”

Customer onboarding has become a significant pain-point for customers and businesses alike in recent years, with a lack of joined up thinking resulting in businesses spending a disproportionate amount of budget and time on manually validating, updating and storing documents. The average bank, for example, spends 60 million dollars per year on Know-Your-Customer compliance.

Mick McAteer, Managing Partner, Grant Thornton Ireland: “We view the valid8Me platform as complementary to a number of our service lines and specifically addresses the needs of our clients across a number of sectors including financial services, legal, accounting, wealth management and real estate among others. We are excited to build our product and service offering in these sectors and bring real innovative solutions to our clients.”

Steve Tennant, Head of Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton Ireland: “KYC and the process by which businesses look to on-board and verify client identities is broken. We deal with an increasing number of clients who are extremely challenged by the resource overhead in complying with AML & KYC regulatory obligations. valid8Me offers a ground-breaking approach to solving this problem and importantly optimising the customer and client experience. We use valid8Me ourselves and have first-hand experience of how it has transformed our client onboarding processes.”

www.valid8me.com