IDPartner Systems teams up with Akoya to Make Online Interactions Safer, Faster, and Easier
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., April 25, 2023 – IDPartner Systems, a new company that optimizes online identity verification through a network of financial institutions, has secured a $3.1M seed round led by Abstract Ventures, with support from Foundation Capital, Circle Ventures, Firsthand Alliance, Correlation Ventures, Success Venture Partners and Aleo.
The round includes angel investors, Aaron VanDevender (former Chief Scientist at Founders Fund), Lance Armstrong, and Joe Grundfest (former SEC Commissioner and co-founder Financial Engines).
Following the round, the company graduated from the StartX accelerator. Ranked #1 nationally, StartX has five times more unicorns than any accelerator program of the same age, and its 700+ well-funded growth-stage startups have a combined valuation of over $26 billion.
IDPartner addresses a problem that confronts all 5 billion Internet users — how to verify their identities and build trust online. Founded by former Santander identity and payments leaders, IDPartner collaborates with OneID UK, Akoya and others to create a product that allows individuals to control their digital identities and choose a preferred identity verification partner from a network of trusted providers, including banks and other financial service firms.
IDPartner benefits businesses by providing a high assurance, low friction reusable method for customers to securely access their online services, wherever they are. The company also helps banks and other partners become indispensable to their customers by providing safer, faster, and easier onboarding and login across the entire internet.
“By giving banks the tools to manage digital identity as a new asset class and by aligning marketplace incentives to drive adoption by companies and users, we can transform the most frustrating identity journeys into an experience as easy and familiar as social login,” said Rod Boothby, IDPartner CEO. “We are building an accessible, assured digital identity layer for the internet that empowers people and protects everyone from fraud and cybercrime.”
Company founders, including Rod Boothby, Trish Burgess, Elizabeth Garber, and Brenan Isabelle led the Open Digital Trust initiative at the Institute of International Finance and play a leading role in the Global Assured Identity Network (GAIN) initiative, a open-source community that seeks globally interoperable identity solutions and policy. GAIN is supported by the OpenID Foundation, Open Identity Exchange, Cloud Signature Consortium, the Secure Identity Alliance, and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation.
“Identity remains one of the largest unsolved problems on the Internet,” said Ramtin Naimi, General Partner at Abstract Ventures. “We are excited to invest in IDPartner and support their mission to overcome the cold start problem for reusable digital identity.”
The IDPartner marketplace comprises trusted partners and businesses that the company has verified. Only verified partners will be available for individuals to select from and use for their reusable ID and verification needs as they navigate their digital lives.
“Our partnership with IDPartner will give consumers more choice and visibility into where and how their financial data is being used,” said Paul LaRusso, CEO of Akoya. “We’re focused on giving all consumers secure access to their data and 100% of our requests go through APIs. This agreement represents a key step in that journey.”
IDPartner is inspired by the success of the BankID ecosystem in the Nordics, which has 99% adoption, is used several times daily by the average person, and has reduced fraud to nearly zero. BankID Norway is an early participant in the IDPartner marketplace, which will offer verification through most major banks in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Other participants are Bonifii, provider of the US credit union digital ID MemberPass, and Airside, the developer of a user-
controlled digital identity app that is approved by TSA and used by and the world’s
largest airline.
“It’s important that people can take back control of their digital identities, online and in-person,” said Adam Tsao, Acting CEO, COO, and founder of Airside. “We’re pleased to team-up with IDPartner to help people create trusted connections when needing to seamlessly verify and share their digital identities with ease and peace-of-mind.”
Individuals can experience IDPartner’s verification solution by joining the NotABot pilot on Twitter. Users simply link to their Twitter accounts and use their bank to verify their identity.
About IDPartner Systems
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, IDPartner Systems is the global marketplace for consumer-controlled digital identity. Adding two lines of IDPartner code to a site or app creates a dynamic ‘Continue with bank" button that connects the user to their preferred verification partner, with coverage at launch of more than 250 million people. Learn more at IDPartner.com.
