By Legal Futures Associate Verify 365
Verify 365, an award-winning AML and ID verification platform that provides automated client onboarding, anti-money laundering (AML) and NFC-based ID checks for law firms in one easy-to-use software app, announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed seed funding round due to strong investor demand.
“We are excited to announce that we have closed an oversubscribed Seed Funding round due to strong investor demand,” said Rudi Kesic, CEO and Founder of Verify 365.
“We’re proud to back the Verify 365 team led by Rudi Kesic in their important mission to transform the legal sector and bring products to market developed by lawyers for lawyers. The company’s founder and CEO Rudi Kesic brings world-class legal sector expertise and has assembled a fantastic team,” said Amrit Johal, one of the key business angel investors.
Verify 365 claim to be the first digital ID verification platform in the world which met the new HM Land Registry Safe Harbour Digital ID standard, providing an app for biometric NFC-based digital verification on all devices that support NFC-chip reading.
“The app speeds up the client onboarding and verification process, it’s user friendly and makes the verification more secure than photo-based verification,” said Mev Dzihic, CTO and Co-Founder of Verify 365.
According to Azeem Rashid, the company’s Co-Founder and CMO, the platform is a frontrunner in providing compliant and secure AML and ID verification technology for the legal sector.
“Our NFC-based ID technology can instantly verify over 10,000 ID documents and all NFC-enabled IDs from over 200 countries. Our electronic AML verification enables lawyers to verify a person’s identity document and onboard clients in an AML compliant manner in a matter of seconds. The tech is faster and more secure than any of the competitors and our technology is far more advanced. Not only does this make our mobile onboarding flows more convenient for clients, but our NFC-based ID verifications are also much more secure methods of data validation.”
Reading the data directly from ePassport’s NFC chip provides the highest security and the ability to check whether someone has tampered with the document. Digital client onboarding and ID verifications can be taken to a new level as most passports and ID cards today are already equipped with the chip, and NFC-chips are being added to all other ID documents across the globe.
“In a world where we control our lives from a smartphone, we are used to digital technologies. The future of the legal sector is digital, and I am very pleased to say that Verify 365 is evolving at a faster pace than any of our competitors. Using an app on their smartphone, a client can simply scan the chip of their ID document using the phone’s contactless reader, take a selfie or video, and the platform then uses complex AI-driven biometric analysis to verify that person. This is a major development for the legal sector. Verify 365 has proved, for the first time, that a remote, compliant, biometric ID verification service can deliver the highest possible levels of security,” added Mev Dzihic.
In addition to the latest NFC-chip reader verification technology, Verify 365 also provides law firms and estate agents in the UK with SRA-compliant anti-money laundering verifications using Verify 365’s FCA-regulated Open Banking technology. Verify 365 app can verify person’s source of funds securely and easily through an FCA-regulated platform which extracts and analyses individual or company transactions and balance data from multiple accounts, using bank-side authentication and consent processes.
“A thorough anti-money laundering source of funds check is critical to cover the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s AML-requirements and reduce money laundering fraud risks. Providing paper statements to lawyers can lead to long turnaround times. With Verify 365, bank account transaction data is guaranteed to be authentic and complete and it’s instantly available to lawyers, analysed and verified without the need to provide additional bank statements,” added Azeem Rashid.
“I am thrilled to be an early investor in Verify 365,” said Samera Mohammed, angel investor from Birmingham. “Verify 365 has developed amazing technology and it’s what the legal sector needs. It’s been developed by lawyers for lawyers, which is very important for me as an investor.
“Verify 365 has grown at a phenomenal pace over the past 6 months and the company is generating significant monthly recurring revenue. This is an incredible achievement for a lawtech start-up,” added Hockham Suthi, one of the early business angel investors in the company.
“I am very excited about Verify 365 as it’s the first legal tech system in the world which is fully compliant with the major regulators, including Her Majesty’s Land Registry Safe Harbour Digital ID certification, the Financial Conduct Authority’s AML standard and the SRA’s AML Compliance framework. I look forward to working with Rudi, Mev and Azeem and to the company’s continued global expansion,” added Amrit Johal, company’s angel investor.
The legal sector is clearly in the midst of a swift and massive transformation to technology due to the need for law firms to find new ways to deliver services to clients. Although these needs were brought on by the events of the past two years, the move to digital-first law firms is a permanent one as consumer expectations and behaviours change.
The company’s founder, Rudi Kesic, has invested over $1M in the company so far, which was used to develop and launch beta-versions of the platforms and apps, and he will continue to invest and support the business in the future.
“In this funding round, we wanted to give an opportunity to a select group of our business partners and VCs to provide the capital needed to grow and develop Lawtech 365. But we honestly didn’t expect such an overwhelming response. We talked to around 20 potential investors and received 17 investment offers, which is incredible in the current economic climate, and we could have secured well over $10M in this round. We selected a strong group of strategic investors to work with, giving priority to partners that really understand the legal sector and those that will assist us to grow the business in the U.K., Middle East, Canada, U.S. and Australia. We have plans to initiate a Series A funding round in April 2023, but we already have more than 10 venture capital partners interested in investing, so this is a very exciting period for the company. Finally, I have witnessed the remarkable passion and perseverance of my team, in tough conditions, to make these accomplishments possible. Special thanks go to my colleagues Mev Dzihic and Azeem Rashid who have worked tirelessly to make Verify 365 a great success. If Lawtech 365 Group can achieve the recurring revenue targets over the next 3 years, we are likely to see yet another $1BN legaltech unicorn, but the first one with its roots and origins in the U.K.,’ added Rudi Kesic.
For more information, please visit: www.verify365.app
