About Smile Identity - ID Verification, User Authentication, e-KYC

Our story

We’re just getting started

Since 2017, we have been driven by a desire to ensure that any African, anywhere in the world, can easily verify their identity. Our cofounder, Mark Straub, observed how difficult it was to prove one's identity during a trip to India. He later noticed the same problem while travelling across Africa. Recognizing that India was still in the early stages of implementing Aadhar, he saw an opportunity to help Africans anywhere in the world easily prove their identities. This is how the idea of building a Smile Identity came about.

Today, we are developing tools and software that will revolutionise the way millions of Africans prove and authenticate their identities online. Our artificial intelligence and identity verification tools have been specially designed for African faces and have a 99.8 percent accuracy rate.

Our technology is used by fast growing companies in a wide range of industries across Africa including Chipper Cash, Paga, Paystack, Twiga, Opay and many more.

Trusted by Africa's fastest growing companies

Our team of experts

Our diverse team of Smilers is spread across 11 countries and 18 timezones. We work remotely with regular opportunities to meet each other both within and outside work. With a diverse team from different cultures we have great perspectives on the problems we are working to solve.We are fueled by our shared passion to change the identity verification space in Africa.

Interested in becoming a Smiler?

Join the team

Our mission and values

How we work at Smile Identity

Our mission is to make it easy for people to prove their identity online, regardless of the origin of their IP Address or ID Card.

We are Seekers of Truth

Whether it is the real identity of a person or the source of a partner's problem, we are always proactively seeking the most truthful answers.
We Own the Outcome

We are not afraid to fail. We believe that we can only learn from our mistakes allowing us to dream big.
We Obsess over our Partners Success

We love seeing our partners making huge strides in Africa, so we ensure that we make it easy for them to grow and scale exponentially.
We Build for Scale

We are always looking at the future and coming up with solutions and processes that will stand the test of time.

Our investors

We are backed, in our mission, by African and US investors including Future Africa, 500 Startups, CRE, Susa Ventures, Pontem, Savannah Fund and Vinod Khosla.