The Colombian identity verification specialist Truora is looking to expand after bringing in $15 million in a round of Series A funding. The company was founded in 2018, and started to ramp up its operations with $3.5 million in seed funding in 2019.
The company is now valued at $75 million following its Series A raise, which was led by Acel and Propel, the latter of which is the fintech investment division of BBVA. Kaszek and Y Combinator also participated in the round alongside several prominent angel investors.
Truora is planning to use the funds to raise its profile in Mexico, and to expand to new markets in the US and Europe. The company is currently active in nine countries, and has opened offices in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and San Francisco, beyond its headquarters in Colombia.
In terms of technology, Truora is best known for its Truconnect solution, which debuted in 2021 and allows organizations to verify the identities of their customers through WhatsApp. The company noted that as much as 90 percent of the population uses WhatsApp in Latin America (roughly 550 million people), making it a convenient identity verification option for many consumers. The WhatsApp service can be deployed in less than a day through a no-code integration process.
Truora’s full portfolio includes chatbot, facial recognition, and document verification technology, in addition to background check services. The company is specifically hoping to target smaller businesses that do not have access to state-of-the art technology resources, to make sure that they have access to reliable onboarding and identity verification services despite their more limited infrastructure. Truora believes that its solutions are well-suited to the online retail and fintech sectors, since its technology can speed up the authentication process and boost customer retention rates.
On the personnel front, Truora is planning to use some of the money to increase its headcount. The company is placing a particular focus on women in tech, and is looking to add 50 female employees to its payroll in the next few years. Seventy percent of the company’s leadership team and 45 percent of its staff are women, and it wants to raise the latter figure to a full 50 percent.
Truora currently brings in $45 million in annual recurring revenue, though it indicated that that number is anticipated to quintuple within the next year. Much of that new revenue is expected to come from Mexico, which is now the company’s fastest-growing market .
BBVA has separately launched Veridas as a joint venture with das-Nano to develop biometric onboarding technology for the financial industry. Veridas recently set up a new office in Mexico City, while BBVA Mexico has partnered with Visa to bring a fingerprint-powered biometric payment card to the country.
Source: TechCrunch
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