Validated ID, the Barcelona-based tech company which specialises in digital signature, electronic invoice, and digital identity, has raised EUR2 million in a funding round led by Randstad Innovation Fund, the corporate venture arm of Randstad.
Co-investor Caixa Capital Risc, CriteriaCaixa’s venture capital management company, also participated.
This round is also backed by founders, previous partners, and the leading law firm Cuatrecasas, via its investment vehicle for startups Cuatrecasas Ventures.
In the past few years Validated ID’s digital signature solution, VIDsigner, has established a leading portfolio of secure and easy to use electronic signature services with the highest legal and security standards. It is being used by over 100 partners and over 1000 clients. This reach, along with the development of its new Self-Sovereign Identity service, VIDchain, has allowed the company to maintain a steady three-digit growth.
With the new resources and the support of leading companies in its sectors, Validated ID enters a new stage of expansion with the aim of intensifying the internationalisation of its VIDsigner signature service, and accelerating the technological product development and market consolidation for VIDchain, its decentralised Self-Sovereign Identity service based on Blockchain for digital identity verification processes. This solution is already getting massive attention in healthcare, Public Administration, and education, due to its expected impact on data breach-related costs, IT costs, operations costs, support function costs and personnel costs. VIDchain ensures GDPR compliance and improves procedures such as customer onboarding, AML, and KYC, and therefore is expected to be especially significant on fraud reduction and counterfeit products.
“We’re living an intense stage of growth in Validated ID. The time is right, our technology and our services are aligned with the market, and we have a great team that day after day is able to ride this wave,” says Santi Casas, CEO of Validated ID. In this sense, “the entry of Randstad Innovation Fund, Caixa Capital Risc, and Cuatrecasas Ventures is proof that we are on the right track. It implies that we’d be extending our digital signature service, VIDsigner, in a more ambitious way across European and LATAM countries and accelerating the evolution of VIDchain as a service aligned with the new universal identity models.”
Paul Jacquin, Managing Partner at Randstad Innovation Fund, adds: “We are excited about the ongoing expansion of Validated ID’ e-signatures solution in Spain and its potential in selected markets in Europe. On top of that, we are especially strong sponsors of their involvement in Self Sovereign Identity (SSI) and the work they do with leading institutions. It is a natural development of the company’s capabilities that will play out as the SSI market matures.”
Xavier Álvarez, ICT Director at Caixa Capital Risc, says: “This operation is one more example of our commitment with companies with a promising future and innovative solutions based on technology. Validated ID is a project that perfectly matches the spirit we’re looking for in companies when it comes to investing. It has a solid project and a very attractive product which makes it a company with a high potential growth.”
Validated ID has three main lines of business. On the one hand, with VIDsigner provides an electronic signature service designed for all cases of face-to-face and remote use, with maximum levels of security, legal compliance, and usability. On the other hand, with SP4i, it offers an electronic invoice service that meets national and European regulatory requirements. Finally, with VIDchain it offers a new sovereign digital identity service (Self-Sovereign identity or SSI) based on blockchain technology and market standards that makes it a universal model, capable of solving identity validation problems such as security failures, privacy, GDPR, PSD2, and AML compliance, high cost, portability, and usability in KYC, and onboarding contexts.
