Working to ensure easy verification for Africans anywhere in the world, Smile Identity has acquired Inclusive Innovations, the parent company of Ghanaian identity verification and fraud detection company, Appruve.
The transaction is being finalized while actively meeting regulatory requirements. This acquisition is a strategic move that will enable Smile Identity to expand its presence in Africa and strengthen its position as the foremost digital KYC and identity verification provider on the continent. Reports revealed that the deal was worth around $20 million, with a significant portion being paid in stock.
Born from Mark Straub’s experience, who co-founded Smile Identity with William Bares in 2017, while travelling to India, during which he noticed how difficult it was to prove his identity, and the same problem arose while he was travelling across Africa. He realized that India was still in the early stages of implementing Aadhar, and this prompted him to create Smile Identity, a solution that would help Africans prove their identities easily anywhere in the world.
Today, Smile Identity is developing advanced tools and software that will revolutionize the way millions of Africans authenticate their identities online. The company’s innovative AI and identity verification tools are tailored to suit African facial features and boast an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent.
Its technology has been adopted by rapidly growing companies across a diverse range of industries in Africa, including Chipper Cash, Paga, Paystack, Twiga, Opay, and many others.
Investors backing the startup include Costanoa Ventures, Future Africa and Norrsken22, among others.
Appruve on the other hand offers an API for verifying user identity and detecting fraud. The startup places significant emphasis on new datasets that either complement or supplement traditional government data, such as national IDs and international passports.
Over the past 18 months, the company has focused on analyzing fraud data from global money networks, verifying mobile money financial statements, and acquiring blocklist data from various banks and fintechs. Despite receiving less than $500,000 in venture capital funding since its inception, as well as $450,000 in grant money from DFS Lab, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Google’s launchpad studio accelerator, Appruve has managed to establish itself as a four-year-old digital verification upstart.
Smile Identity’s acquisition of Appruve will enable the company to broaden its suite of APIs, which includes mobile money, data, and anti-fraud checks. With this development, Smile Identity affirms that it can now cater to over 1 billion Africans, the African diaspora, and 100 million African businesses. It can support more than 230 types of documents and data, and can integrate with any device and operating system combination in Africa. Before the acquisition, Smile Identity had completed over 60 million verifications.
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