US-based payments firm Entrust Corp has completed its acquisition of British AI customer identity verification startup Onfido.
The University of Oxford spinout, which provides customer verification for customers including Revolut and Orange, entered early-stage talks for the acquisition in February.
The two companies have now confirmed the deal has been completed. Oxford University Innovation, the university’s commercialisation arm, claimed it is the institution’s largest-ever return on investment for a student-led startup. However, no involved party has publicly declared the specific terms of the deal.
Onfido said its team of 500 people has grown revenue to more than £140m. Entrust is a US payments firm that intends to incorporate Onfido’s identity verification tools into its own business.
Co-founder and former CEO Husayn Kassai said that when the company was founded in 2012, “building a new way to verify identities online felt like a moonshot”.
He added: “Having support from Oxford Innovation’s first incubator provided a crucial launchpad – not only for the company but for our confidence.
“Oxford’s leap of faith into a nascent idea was rocket fuel and I am incredibly grateful to Oxford University and the entire ecosystem for supporting our journey.”
Prof Chas Bountra, pro-vice-chancellor for innovation at the University of Oxford, added: “With its acquisition by Entrust, Onfido has shown that student-led companies can become phenomenally successful, inspiring a new generation of students, staff, and investors to cultivate our world-class innovation ecosystem in Oxford.”
Onfido has raised more than £143m in investments from backers including Salesforce Ventures, Future Fifty and the University of Oxford. It was valued as high as $600m following a $100m in Series D funding in April 2020. Sources told TechCrunch in February that the acquisition figure is “well above” $400m.