TOP TEN

The US company has strong innovation leadership, led by a dynamic duo: 32-year-old CEO Rick Song, a former Square engineer, and 30-year-old CTO Charles Yeh, who previously served as the technical lead at Dropbox. Notably, Square partnered with Persona to provide tens of thousands of small businesses owners quick access to forgivable loans in the US. With backing from the prestigious Founders Fund and $217.5 million in total investments from investors like Index Ventures, Meritech Capital, and Coatue Management, the company now boasts a valuation of $1.5 billion. Persona is now targeting the lucrative gambling and gaming market, powered by its cutting-edge Graph product and best-in-class age verification system. What sets Persona apart is its ability to customise verification processes, doubling conversion rates and offering a wide array of verification options. Their superior tech stack and biometric player re-verification capabilities are especially crucial for the betting sector. Persona currently provides identity verification tools to prominent companies such as Square, Coursera and Robinhood. The Graph product stands out for its automatic clustering fraud prevention capabilities. .

Featuring AI-enabled Video KYC, (which promotes compliance and accelerates the onboarding process & time-to-market by 5x), the superior tech stack of the New York and India based Signzy warrants its no. 2 ranking. And given its extensive digital banking infrastructure experience, the company is well-placed to take the lead on enhanced financial risk and affordability checks within the gambling indiustry. Its V-KYC (V-CIP), was conceived as a direct response to the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) progressive regualtions around video KYC to improve compliance, verification and combat fraud. V-KYC assumes a pivotal role as global gambling commissions enhance safety protocols on self-exclusion, with gambling operators combatting fraud, underage participation, and problem gambling interlinked with financial liabilities. With over 300 employees and CEO Ankit Rantan showing strong innovation leadership - and having just raised $26 million from Gaja Capital and returning investors, Vertex Venturesand Arkam Ventures, in a Series B - Signzy is well on its way to disrupting the gambling & gaming industry.

After bootstrapping itself with some £128m in funding from its multimillionaire serial founders and HNWI over the last eight years, Yoti finally took some institutional money about 18 months ago. Robin Tombs and Noel Hayden, the company's co-founders, exited online gambling company Gamesys for £2bn in 2021, netting the pair an estimated £500m. So it's no surprise that Yoti has its finger on the digital identity and gambling pulse. Recent capital injection comes with a new enterprise valuation of around £180m - the caveat being that Tombs and Hayden have basically helped to set that valuation from both sides of the table. Later this year, Yoti plans to raise a Series B round - likely around £20m - from strategic investors. In the 12 months to March 31st 2022, the company had revenues of £3.2m, making a loss of £21m. The firm is bouncing back with revenues FYE 2023 of £6.2m.

With over 1,250 people across 18 countries and a HQ in Chester, UK, GB Group (GBG), has scaled rapidly in North America with a $300m cash acquisition of IDology in 2019, followed by a £547m swoop for Acuant in 2021. The London-listed digital identity specialist had revenues of £242m to March 31st 2022, but made a loss before tax of £118.8m in the last financial year, writing off £122m of intangible assets. A potential £1.3bn American private equity takeover of GBG ended last September, when Chicago-based GTCR tried to make a cash offer. GBG has a stellar gaming client book including Betfair, Betway, Ladbrokes and William Hill in the UK under the 888 brand. Part of the company's mission in gambling is to, 'Stop minors from creating accounts and accessing content with robust and reliable age verification checks as part of a seamless experience for those good players'. Apart from its age verification screening tools, GBG has a robust affordability solution, which identifies potential markers of harm, including bad debt and bankruptcy. It has customers across more than 70 countries.

Established in 2012 by three Oxford University alumni with £30k in seed capital, the company hemorrhaged $28.5m in April for violating the US Biometric Information Privacy Act. It has a team of 580 and recently partnered with Soft2Bet. Potentially lining up for an IPO, Onfido has genuine clients in Draft Kings, MegaBet and William Hill in the USA, (the brand acquired by Caesars Entertainment in April 2021, who then sold the European business to 888 Holdings for £2.2 billion). Revenue for a 13-month period ending January 2022 was £95m, (in contrast to £45m in 2021). Its gross profit for the current period stands at £67m, alongside an operating loss of £45m. Onfido has secured over £156m in total funding, but it's last raise was in 2020. It has some notable investors like Microsoft, Salesforce, and SBI (formerly a SoftBank affiliate), and they've completed a funding round led by TPG Growth, the same firm backing Airbnb and Uber. The firm's 'Real Identity Platform' encompasses document, biometric, and data verification, which reduces fraud and maximises conversion rates. This includes Motion (anti-spoofing facial biometrics), and Atlas (an anti-fraud AI bot, amongst other things).

Estonian-based company has an AI-powered, video-first approach to ID. It raised £83million in Series C financing in 2022, co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon, joining existing investors IVP and Accel. That round brought Veriff’s total funding to just over £166million, and took its valuation to £1.24billion. Not immune to the tech slowdown, the company laid off 12% of its staff in 2023, but still has upwards of 400 employees. It has the popular Stake.com as a client, and has signed with gaming companies like Rebillion and Gibraltar-based Crucial Compliance. Popular with gaming companies like Rebillion, Stake.com and Crucial Compliance, which helps companies build responsible betting models, as well as financial services providers like Monzo, Blockchain.com, and Wise. The company recently received a $4m fine for violating the US Biometric Information Privacy Act.

In February 2023, Italy-based online gambling operator Sisal adopted Jumio’s end-to-end ID verification solution for operations across Italy, Morocco, and Turkey. The company is using Jumio’s tech to verify the age and identity of new customers during the onboarding process. With HQ in Sunnyvale, California, Jumio raised $150 million in 2021, from private equity firm Great Hill Partners, who joined earlier investors Centana and Millennium. The company counts gambling software giant Playtech as one of its partners and surpassed $200 million in bookings in 2022 for its selfie biometrics. It quietly laid off around 6% of its workforce, (around 90 people) in January 2023 and currently has almost 1,450 employed. Its online gambling credentials are unquestionably strong and it continues to service Malta-based online casino and sports books Novibet and Casumo.

A leader in Proof of Address (PoA) checks, essential in crypto, trading, gambling, and other prominent digital industries. Additionally, the London firm now supports over 14,000 types of identity documents, double their previous number of 6,500. This investment in expanding their database of supported documents will enable more users and groups to access online services. The Sumsub platform provides options for instant geo-based verification and address checks via global government databases. It counts Betmaster, CopyBet and software provider Upgaming in its client list and is one to watch in the next year.

Nasdaq-traded NeoGames (NGMS), and its B2B igaming subsidiary Aspire Global are clients. This includes BtoBet, a leading B2B provider of sports betting solutions to Tier 1 operators. The new partnership also includes US firm NeoPollard, which means the firm's iLottery and iGaming market presence is expanding. The company's selfie biometric authentication service is being used by online gaming firm Genesis Global and PayU. Having prevented over USD$700 million in fraud-related losses, it has joined the Age Verification Providers Association, (US). Founded by brothers Brothers Ron and Gil Atzmon, (70% stake of the business).

Founded in 2017, this Spanish company has a Gartner recognised 'Phygital Identity Platform', and is headquarted in a hotbed of gambling and can therefore make a special contrinution to taking the lead in combatting problem gambling. With revenues of over £5million last year, one of its founding partners is the Spanish bank BBVA who carried out a financing round of just over £3.5million. Recent data seen by Gambling IQ suggests that the Veridas facial recognition is already minimising fraud and identity theft online.