Costanoa Ventures co-led the investment with pan-African venture firm CRE Venture Capital. Other investors that participated include VCs like LocalGlobe, Intercept Ventures, Future Africa, and unnamed angel investors. Existing investors, including Khosla Impact, ValueStream Ventures, Beta Ventures, 500 Startups, and Story Ventures, also participated.
Smile Identity is now present across six markets in Africa: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda. It covers more than 250 million identities and verification for 15 different ID types while performing over one million identity checks every month.
Its software is used in banking, fintech, ridesharing, worker verification, public social welfare programs, and telecommunications. According to the company, Smile Identity has about 80 customers who are charged on a per-query basis. Some include payments companies like Paystack, Paga, and Chipper Cash; neo-banks like Kuda and Umba; traditional banks like Stanbic IBTC; cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Luno, and Paxful; and supply-chain businesses like Twiga.
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