AnaCap Financial Partners (“AnaCap”), a leading specialist mid-market private equity investor in technology enabled financial services, today announces a majority investment in WebID, a leading German digital identification provider. AnaCap will provide significant growth capital and partner with the founders and existing management team to extend WebID’s product offering to other industries outside of the core financial services and telecoms space where it has a market leading position, such as eGovernment, eHealth, eCommerce and eMobility as well as support inorganic growth through future acquisitions.
WebID provides a range of digital identification solutions for Know Your Customer (“KYC”) purposes, such as identification via video call, online banking, artificial intelligence, as well as qualified electronic signature (“QES”) solutions for E-Signing to leading financial institutions and large corporates across Germany, via its modular IT platform, Global Trust Technology Platform (“GTTP”). WebID is an enabler of the increasingly important offline-to-online channel shift being witnessed globally and holds several patents across Europe, US and China. The company identifies over 15,000 users per day with Video Ident alone and more with their fully automated products, on a 24/7 basis, and has collected and stored over 8 million verified identities. WebID continuously looks to develop new innovative and secure solutions which help make the daily lives of customers, industries, and public authorities more digital, eco-friendly and convenient.
WebID was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Berlin, other main sites are Hamburg, Kiel, and Solingen. It has ~300 customers including a blue-chip roster of large corporates and financial institutions. WebID is a pioneer of Bafin[1] -approved, AML-compliant video identification solution and is highly respected among its clients and regulators alike. Currently, major lenders such as Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Santander are established core clients and rely on WebID’s KYC solutions to boost their online channel activities.
The DACH region is well known to AnaCap and the investment in WebID follows portfolio company MRH Trowe’s (“MRHT”) continued strong expansion with nine bolt-on growth acquisitions as part of an accelerated buy-and-build strategy in the large and fragmented German corporate insurance broking market, for which AnaCap is leveraging experience from its successful buy-and-build strategy of payments company heidelpay across the region and subsequent successful exit to KKR.
Tassilo Arnhold, Partner at AnaCap, commented:
“WebID is a very impressive company and one we have been tracking for some time, given its footing in the high growth digital identification market in Germany. The banking landscape there is witnessing sustained growth from increasing channel shifts of online vs. offline and the penetration of KYC in online processes that we believe will ultimately lead to a fully online customer journey. WebID is extremely well placed to enable, facilitate and capitalise on this trend, particularly for large banks who are keen adopters for security, operational efficiency and cost management purposes. There is also significant further upside potential through the possible deployment of digital identification solutions in additional verticals going forward via the likes of eGov and eHealth, fuelled by actual real use cases and existing favourable legislation. We look forward to supporting management in the next stage of growth for WebID.”
Frank S. Jorga, Founder of WebID, commented:
“We have had numerous inquiries over the past few years and have been pleased with the interest we have received from prestigious investment companies. For us it was important to have a partner matching the founding spirit of WebID. Now with AnaCap, we have found the right investor to consistently expand our leading position in the market and as an industry pioneer and to significantly accelerate our growth, which has so far been organic. After the company’s formative years, 2020 was an exceptional year for WebID. Sales from 2019 of more than 13 million euros rose to 20 million in 2020 and this year we are heading for 30 million. All this confirms our strategy, which is now supported by AnaCap. Products, such as our invention WebID Video Ident, are of interest to numerous, especially regulated, sectors worldwide due to their high level of security. Our IT platform provides a comprehensive global ecosystem for E-KYC and related services. A first-class portfolio for a strong growth trajectory via new business development and international expansion. AnaCap’s experience and success in the fintech space are ideal to further realize our strategy of ambitious growth. Together, we are taking WebID’s success story to the next level.”
For this transaction, AnaCap received corporate finance advice from GCA Altium and legal advice from Proskauer Rose (London) and Norton Rose Fulbright (Munich). The transaction is subject to the usual closing conditions.
[1] The German financial regulator
