Jumio Raises $25M, Turns Webcams Into ID Readers

Jumio, the startup that made it possible to pay via webcam, is announcing a new Series B funding round of $25 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz and including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Match.com founder Peng T. Ong among others. Alongside the funding, Jumio is also formally introducing Netverify today, which makes it possible to read ID documents via webcam, and is announcing the addition of Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Scott Weiss to its board of directors.

The Mountain View-based startup unveiled its Netswipe product last July, which allows users to simply hold their credit card up to their computer or iOS device’s camera (Android is in the works) in order to make an online payment. Netswipe eliminates the hassle of manually entering credit card info for users, and provides a way for merchants to help guard against credit card fraud.

Jumio CEO and founder Daniel Mattes, who previously founded VoIP company Jajah, said the company has already seen significant traction for Netswipe, but that in his dealings with companies using Netswipe, he came across broader potential uses for the tech. “It’s not only about credit card scanning, there’s also huge demand for ID scanning,” Mattes said in an interview. “Scanning a passport and sending it via email or fax somewhere, or scanning a driver’s license or utility bill, all these procedures are so expensive for the merchant.”

Mattes says that Jumio figured out that these processes can end up costing about $75 per instance, and he also points out that it’s not instant. To contrast, Netverify costs $1 per scan, and produces instant results. “There’s benefit for the consumer, because it’s easier, but also for the merchants,” Mattes said. Netverify will also eventually be made available to mobile developers via an API as well.

“In terms of Netswipe, we’re on track to get to a $100 million run rate this year,” Mattes told us, though he couldn’t talk specifically about how many companies are currently using their API to accept payments. “It has been widely accepted, and that’s why we went after further funding,” Mattes said. The plan now is to expand Jumio’s presence through sales of the service via the reseller model and other measures.

There’s a lot of activity in the digital payments space at the moment, including Square’s introduction of Square Register on Monday. Mattes thinks Jumio’s well-positioned to ride the wave no matter what happens on the rest of the mobile payment front, however. “If you’re on mobile you need to type in all your information, it’ll take two to three minutes to finalize your transaction,” Mattes said. “In our case, you just turn on the camera, and it takes three seconds.” He sees that as providing a key opportunity to allow his company to forge partnerships with whoever emerges as the major mobile payment players.

“When it comes to [mobile] wallets, our goal is to also partner with those wallets, because at one point you have to also tell those wallets what your credit card number is,” Mattes points out. “There’s also the part of the process where you need to show your ID, utility bill, etc. to prove your identification.” He thinks Jumio is in a key position to provide those kinds of services to online wallet operators like PayPal, for example.

With its new funding round and a brand new product that alleviates a lot of the pain of proving identity online, Jumio is poised to add to their existing traction. They’ll be looking to turn that prime positioning into long-term success as digital payments evolve and become more mainstream.

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