South Africa’s digital identity provider Contactable has raised $13.5 million to expand its eKYC and onboarding platform across Africa.
The funding round was led by Venture Capitalworks, with participation from Fireball Capital, Ke Nako Capital, and Mavovo.
Why it matters
Digital ID and eKYC infrastructure remain critical to Africa’s financial inclusion agenda, where regulators and businesses are pushing for interoperability to reduce fraud and expand access to services.
How it works:
- Founded in 2012, Contactable calls itself an “integrated identity” platform.
- It offers enterprises a single integration point for onboarding, identity verification, fraud mitigation, and compliance.
- Clients include firms in financial services, telecoms, insurance, retail, motor finance, and payments.
- The platform handles document and biometric checks, sanctions screening, and ongoing KYC processes.
What’s next
The new funding will fuel:
- Expansion into additional African markets (timelines not disclosed).
- Product development in areas like Ultimate Beneficial Ownership verification, AI-driven risk signaling, self-sovereign identity models, and payments integration.
Zoom out
- The deal comes amid rising investment in identity and payments tech. Visa and Tech5 recently announced a seven-year partnership to integrate biometrics and digital wallets into public infrastructure projects.
- Industry groups are also backing standards like the OpenID Foundation’s Shared Signals, which help keep federated systems secure and trustworthy.
The big question
- How will Contactable balance rapid expansion with biometric data privacy laws that differ across jurisdictions?
- Will investors back large-scale rollouts beyond pilot projects?
- Can the company ensure transparency in Ultimate Beneficial Ownership records and document authentication at scale?
Source: ID Tech Wire
Learn more about other African tech startups on Labari Insights, our data repository for tech in Africa: insights.techlabari.com
