Professional services firm Grant Thornton Ireland has acquired control of Cork software company Valid8Me and its digital identity platform.

Launched last year, Valid8Me's platform aims to enable individuals and corporations to store, share and manage their Know Your Customer-related data, helping to streamline customer onboarding for businesses.

Grant Thornton described the deal as a €12.5m investment. Prior to the deal, which was effected in March 2022, Valid8Me was owned by Insigma Technology Co, which is listed on the Shanghai stock exchange.

"This investment from Grant Thornton Ireland, combined with their global reach and multi-sector expertise,  will act as a transformational partner in accelerating Valid8Me’s ambitious high-growth strategy," said Patrick Horgan, CEO of Valid8Me.

"Grant Thornton truly understands Valid8Me’s vision to become the universal de facto standard for digital identity  globally.”

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Valid8Me says its platform reduces customer onboarding costs by up to 50% and onboarding times by 90% with its reusable digital identity vaults that simplify the process of sourcing, maintaining and updating KYC documents.

The vaults model also removes overheads around handling sensitive data while reducing data privacy risk and exposure for businesses, while the reusable identities allows customers to be instantly verified across all industries and businesses.

The platform supports over 10,000 different document templates from 248 different countries and territories. 

"The idea that consumers repeatedly share their most sensitive data, often through insecure channels, to prove their identity is archaic," Horgan added. "We empower consumers to maintain a reusable digital identity that can be used universally across all industries.

"Our platform addresses an enormous challenge for  businesses by enabling enhanced anti-money laundering compliance in a radically future proof and cost-effective way, whilst offering their clients a more secure and convenient experience”

Mick McAteer, managing partner of Grant Thornton Ireland, said: "We view the Valid8Me platform as complementary to a number of our service lines and specifically  addresses the needs of our clients across a number of sectors including financial services, legal, accounting, wealth management and real estate among others.

"We are excited to build our product  and service offering in these sectors and bring real innovative solutions to our clients.”

Steve Tennant, head of financial services advisory at Grant Thornton, stated: “KYC and the  process by which businesses look to on-board and verify client identities is broken. We deal with an  increasing number of clients who are extremely challenged by the resource overhead in complying with AML and KYC regulatory obligations.

"Valid8Me offers a ground-breaking approach to solving this problem and importantly optimising the customer and client experience. We use valid8Me ourselves and have first-hand experience of how it has transformed our client onboarding processes.”

Photo: (back row l-r) Valid8Me CEO Patrick Horgan and CPO Ciaran Corkery; (front row l-r) Steve Tennant and Grant Thornton colleague Louise Barry.