Verihubs founders stated that it takes several weeks to verify new customers at many financial institutions in Southeast Asia. With the help of AI-based identity authentication technology, Verihubs cuts down on that time by allowing companies to continue verifying customers via SMS, WhatsApp, flash calls, and other APIs.
Verihubs has announced that it raised $2.8 million seed funding to help achieve its goal of becoming the single-stop shop for verification in Southeast Asia. Angel investors also came from prominent Southeast Asian startups, including Budi Handoko, Shipper founder; Jefriyanto and Ricky Winata, co-founders of Payfazz; Rohit Mulani co-founder of Gotrade; Chinmay Chauhan, Bukuwarung founder; and Pramodh Rai ex-chief product officer at Modalku.
It recently completed Y Combinators' summer 2021 batch. The startup claims it is the first YC supported AI startup from Indonesia.
Verihubs is based in Jakarta and was founded by Rick Firnando (who has over 9 years experience in B2B) and Williem Williem (an AI researcher who holds a PhD from South Korea's Inha University in computer vision). The company has 46 customers currently, which includes major banks and fintechs. Its founders claim it will soon have 100 customers. Although most of its clients are financial institutions, Verihubs can be used to e-commerce and rental marketplaces, as well as hospitality. One of their clients is a hotel which uses Verihubs to manage its check-in process.
Firnando said that many clients of Verihubs were still manually verifying customers before adopting Verihubs. Verihubs is an end-to–end verification solution because developers find it difficult to integrate with multiple vendors. It allows clients to do KYC (know your client), provides phone number verification via SMS or WhatsApp, and verifies financial data.
End users are asked to take a selfie, then upload a photo of their government-issued photo ID when they log on to Verihubs' app for the first time. Verihubs AI-based technology then compares the photos and crosses-references them with Indonesian government databases and telecom credit scores.
Verihubs caters to two types of end users: those who have traditional bank accounts as well as unbanked individuals. Central Capital Ventura's new investment will allow Verihubs to expand its services to users who have bank accounts. BCA will also be able to access the startups data. Firnando stated that Verihubs has been working closely with Payfazz to allow customers to deposit money at local agents for online payments and BukuWarung to access transaction data.
A startup's product pipeline includes the creation of its own credit scores based on transaction data such as account balances. Verihubs' current focus is on Indonesia but plans to expand in other Southeast Asia markets.
We found that the ID verification system is already in Indonesian market, but we are open to expanding into new products. We combine financial data from multiple sources. Not only do we consolidate it for banks but also for unbanked people. We are also looking at expanding into new markets like Vietnam and the Philippines.
