"Know your customer and digital identity verification are board-level issues for financial services companies. The current, manual systems used by fintechs and FTSE100 companies alike are both bespoke and broken," said AirTree Ventures partner John Henderson.
"The world needs a better solution, and we believe FrankieOne provides it. After seeing the incredible progress and undeniable traction Simon and the team have had, we're excited to be leading their Series A as they position themselves to be the leading identity verification and fraud risk provider".
Greycroft partner Will Szczerbiak said "Financial services companies pay top dollar to acquire customers. Upon signup, customers undergo a series of checks – including KYC, identity verification, and anti-fraud – that can force companies to turn away potentially great customers because of reliance on inadequate systems.
|
"FrankieOne's APIs extracts the complexity away, allowing their clients to onboard more great customers while delivering a delightful end user experience. It is a unique approach that scales globally, and we are excited about the partnership".
Other institutional investors included 20VC, Reinventure, Tidal Ventures, Apex Capital, and Mantis VC.
The round also attracted individual participants such as DJs The Chainsmokers, Robinhood founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, Monzo founder Tom Blomfield, and senior executives at Revolut and Public.com.
More than 80 new clients joined the platform during the last 18 months, including Afterpay, Westpac and Zipmex. To date, all growth has been organic, as until now the company has not had a sales or marketing team.
The company was founded in 2017 by Simon Costello and Aaron Chipper with the aim of becoming a neobank, but the duo soon pivoted to address the customer onboarding problem.
"With the threat of severe penalties if customer onboarding is not performed correctly, the primary focus for banks and fintechs has been on compliance, which usually comes at the detriment of the customer experience. What we have learned is that it does not need to be one or the other," said FrankieOne CEO Simon Costello.
"Regulatory and technical challenges are often a major roadblock in a fintech's ability to rapidly scale internationally. Our mission is to create a platform that provides fintechs with the convenience of consuming the world's identity verification and fraud-prevention services via a single unified API. This allows fintechs to 'switch on' geographies and services as they need, enabling them to focus on innovation and their core business."
The Series A funds will be directed towards further international expansion.
"We have been fortunate to attract such high-profile global investors, as they recognise the huge market potential for FrankieOne as more companies begin to embrace embedded finance, essentially becoming fintechs," Costello added.
In related news, the company doubled its headcount in the last three months, including the appointment of former McKinsey & Co associate partner Warren Oakes as COO.