The Veriff Story

Growing up on a farm, hay bales were a staple of Kaarel Kotkas’s childhood. At the age of 14, he noticed that the strings that bound them did not biodegrade, and often ended up littered across the fields of the otherwise pristine landscape of rural Estonia.

Kaarel set out to find an environmentally-friendly alternative, and after browsing the web he came across the perfect string (it also came in his favorite color). As he registered an account on arguably the biggest global online marketplace, he was asked to verify that he was over 18. After a little photo editing, he breezed through their security and was able to buy the string.

While his mission was a success, Kaarel couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it was to pretend to be someone else online. If successful companies are this vulnerable to fraud, then smaller businesses don’t stand a chance. This early experience planted the seed that would one day grow into Veriff.

Kaarel founded Veriff in 2015 at the age of 20. Shortly after, it popped up on the global radar and in 2018 it joined the Y Combinator spring batch. Fast forward to now, Veriff has over 500 employees and serves over 190 countries as the gold standard for online identity verification.