Digital identity verification startup Bureau gets $4.5 million topup funding from GMO Venture Partners, others

Japanese tech giant GMO Venture Partners and GMO Payment Gateway led the round, infusing approximately $3 million, with the rest coming from existing investors. Through this strategic round, Bureau will also work closely with GMO Payments.

Bureau is backed by Quona Capital, Blume, Village Global and others, which had led its series A round back in 2021.

The San Francisco- and Bengaluru-based tech startup offers identity verification services to Indian tech companies. It helps them verify whether customers are authentic and also helps reduce fraud attacks. Bureau has evaluated around 300 million identities till date.

In an interaction with ET, Bureau founder Ranjan R Reddy said that the company is working with more than 90 customers across fintech, banking, and gig economy platforms, as well as gaming and matrimony websites.

“We authenticate whether the customer who is onboarding on an app is a genuine one, is actually who he or she claims to be, and is sharing the right credentials,” Reddy said.

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The demand for such services has gone up recently as more companies are realising the risk from fraud attacks and are moving to become proactive rather than reactive to fraud, he added.With this new funding round, Bureau will strengthen its product offering, look to expand into new geographies, and also expand its team, which has a strength of around 65 now.

Currently, Bureau operates in India, Indonesia, some countries in West Asia, and in the US.

“With the new round, we will try to go deeper in West Asia and SouthEast Asia,” Reddy said.

The company has grown over the last 18 months, from around 15 clients to more than 90 today. Reddy wants to scale this up to 150 this year.

While he did not share exact numbers, Reddy said that revenue has grown six times and he intends to grow it by another six times this financial year.

“We are not profitable right now, but hope to be so in the next 16 to 18 months,” he added.