Yoti has secured £8 million in new equity investment in the company’s third successful funding round since its debut in 2017. The new funds will be invested in product development and expansion as the company searches for new partners.

“Over the past few years we have invested about £65 million to develop our privacy-preserving identity system, giving individuals a safe and secure way to prove their age or identity for free,” said Yoti Co-Founder and CEO Robin Tombs. “This latest funding round will help us to 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.”

The latest funding round gives Yoti a post money equity valuation of £82 million, and should help the company build on its astronomical early success. Yoti has grown at a rapid pace over the past few years, providing secure age and identity verification services for a wide variety of partners ranging from convenience stores to Jägermeister to the Scottish government.

Along the way, Yoti developed age estimation facial recognition technology that provides discreet proof of age. The technology has been leveraged to safeguard Yubo’s youth-oriented social media platform. It has also been used to verify legal age on dating sites like The Meet Group.

So far, most of Yoti’s major partners have been based in the UK, although the company is looking globally with the new funds. Yoti has expanded its team in India and the United States, and has now reached 4.7 million downloads for its app.