Spicehaus says they are pleased to confirm the 10th investment of the Spicehaus Swiss Venture Fund.
Fidentity offers automatic online identification of customers (KYC). The software can automatically match a live image or “selfie” with “the corresponding identification document.” Unlike other solutions in the market, no call center agent is needed and no app needs to be installed. Fidentity already has existing clients like AMAG Leasing, Valiant and Zuger Kantonalbank.
As mentioned in the announcement, fidentity aims to simplify automated online identification (KYC) through identification documents and a liveness check. With fidentity, AML-compliant onboarding is “completely automated and always available.”
The release also noted that banking institutions and regulated financial service providers “rely on fidentity to manage their AML risks while offering an online experience on par with any neo-bank.” With the fresh capital, fidentity will “expand its product leadership and invest in further growth in Switzerland and Europe.”
The investment round was completed “with Spicehaus Swiss Venture Fund as lead investor and several experienced angel investors.”
Thorsten Hau, CEO of fidentity, stated:
“We are pleased to have reached an important milestone for fidentity with this financing round. Our goal is to make our solution even better known and to show that compliance and an excellent user experience are not mutually exclusive. With Spicehaus we have gained a partner with a lot of experience in our target market.”
Heidi Kunz, Investment Manager at Spicehaus Partners AG, added:
“fidentity combines compliance and technology in a fascinating way to create an extremely customer-friendly solution. We are very happy to support fidentity.”
The potential in Switzerland for modern KYC is “still great and the development is very dynamic as established financial service providers continue to digitize their business processes at great speed,” the announcement revealed.
fidentity intends to further expand operations into Europe for 2022. In a first step, the focus is on the countries bordering Switzerland, the update confirmed.
Thorsten Hau added:
“Our solution has proven itself a thousand times over in Switzerland and we look forward to soon being present in Europe, too.”
As noted in the release, fidentity was established back in 2016 in Bern and has been “active in the Swiss market since the beginning of 2017.”
The Fintech firm offers financial service providers “a web solution for finma-compliant online identification of natural persons.”
Using the latest technology, which is developed in-house in Switzerland, fidentity “resolves the tension between simplicity for the end user, regulatory security, and a flexible integration.” The strong growth in the past financial year “clearly shows that smooth identification is an essential component in the technology portfolio of financial service providers.
As noted in the update, Spicehaus Partners AG is a Swiss venture capital investor. Behind Spicehaus “are the two founders Teddy Amberg and Daniel Andres.” Together they have over 25 years of industry experience in institutional business (Partners Group, BNP Paribas). In addition, as entrepreneurs, they “founded and helped build companies themselves.”
Teddy Amberg “helped set up the Swiss fintech startup CreditGate24, which is now the largest Swiss peer-to-peer lending platform.” Daniel Andres co-founded the trading company dakuro. So far, the two partners have “invested in 20 startups and have been involved in some of the largest Swiss exits: MOVU (bought by Baloise) and Bexio (bought by Mobiliar).”
Spicehaus Partners AG “acts as investment advisor for the Spicehaus Swiss Venture Fund. The fund invests in Swiss startups that are “driving digitalization.”