Jakarta, 13 September 2021 – Indonesian-based digital identity network VIDA announced today that it has raised funds from leading investors including Jungle Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, and Monk’s Hill Ventures. With the new round of funding, the company will focus on hiring and building its tech and go-to-market functions, along with expanding its presence across fintech, banking, insurance, and healthcare sectors.
Founded in 2018 by fintech and cybersecurity experts, Niki Luhur, Sati Rasuanto, and Gajendran Kandasamy, VIDA is at the epicenter of monumental wave changes in Southeast Asia- a rapidly growing Internet economy, increasing sophistication and proliferation of cyberattacks, and the accelerating digital transformation, have made identity verification an imperative for the internet economy today.
In Indonesia, there are 190 million adults who need digital security solutions to protect their identities. All different services require identity and personal information, including financial services, loan applications, social assistance, education services, health services. A competitive technological advantage is needed for all sectors.
Niki Luhur, VIDA’s Founder and Executive Chairman said, “Identity verification underpins every digital transaction. We leverage our expertise in cybersecurity to build products that fundamentally change the user experience of all digital platforms and products. As a digital trust provider, we provide solutions to answer the challenges faced by cyber security today.”
VIDA offers identity verification, legally binding and verifiable digital signatures, and verifiable credentials. It helps companies to verify identities digitally using biometrics, machine learning and computer vision, big data, and more, to run checks on identity cards and facial biometrics against government databases.
Amit Anand, Founding Partner, Jungle Ventures said, “Identity verification is the keystone of Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing internet economy. There are millions of people every day who need to be identified & verified officially for any online transaction. Vida’s core technology supersedes every other identity verification technology available in the region today. We are extremely excited and proud to partner with Niki, Sati, and Gajendran who bring deep domain expertise to transform the digital landscape in the region and strive to make every transaction safer and more secure.”
Data security and convenience are the main values in VIDA’s services. VIDA became the first Certificate Authority (CA) company in Indonesia that obtained WebTrust certification and was listed in the Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL), and also is ISO 27001 certified. Its digital signature can be recognized in more than 40 countries.
“VIDA offers state-of-the-art solutions that will play a pivotal role in a growing Southeast Asia’s digital business and economy. We have seen how similar solutions become part of daily lives in other major markets like the US and Europe, but not as much in Indonesia where there is no dominant player in this sector. With a strong team led by experienced professionals and seasoned founders, in addition to its full-stack products and complete licenses, we believe VIDA can win the race and rise to become the region’s top digital identity player,” says Jefrey Joe, Co-Founder and General Partner at Alpha JWC Ventures.
“Digital identity infrastructure and management – from authentication to verification to authorization – is fundamental to the digitalization of the Indonesian economy in particular, and Southeast Asia in general. VIDA has taken on the consequential task to meet the challenge with their deep expertise and a relentless commitment to delivering digital identity infrastructure in Indonesia,” said Kuo-Yi Lim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.
VIDA has planned a series of use cases to help its users with some of the basic pain points in their everyday life: to enable frictionless mobility, a secure and flexible work environment, and low touch leisure. To date, VIDA has provided MSMEs with digital identity authentication services and certified digital signatures to improve the security of electronic transactions. It resulted in more efficient business processes and supported the digital transformation of MSMEs in Indonesia.
“This is just the beginning of the VIDA journey and we are honored to be supported by founder-centric VCs. We believe that partnerships are the key to scaling and empowering ecosystems. We believe in building bridges to anchor our growth in the resilience of a trusted network. VIDA aims to create frictionless access to financial services, as well as provide health certificates to help safely reopen the Indonesian economy in the midst of this pandemic,” closed Niki.
