The problem
Probably most of us have some experience with online ID verification. This process initially popped up in online banking to confirm the identity of new customers and usually includes providing scans of your documents and a selfie to verify your authenticity. Today, online ID verification is crucial for many businesses – banking, finance, age-restricted businesses, etc.
However, in many cases, it is important to verify not a personal ID but the identity of a business. For example, to check the authenticity of different licenses, certificates, registrations, or permissions.
Creating your own verification system can be expensive for the majority of businesses. Manual processing of each identity is also costly. A solution that takes over this work can be quite useful in many cases.
Today we are reviewing a platform that outsources various business identity verification tasks and that has recently secured new round of $5.7M funding.
Why they signaled a good niche for new startups, and why it’s worth replicating their idea in other geographic markets, read further on.
The solution
Mesh is a tool that mainly checks the identity and license of businesses.
The platform can check all registered U.S. businesses and also fully verify state-licensed businesses and professionals in certain sectors, like construction, home services, architecture, cosmetology, and professional beauty.
The manifesto of Mesh is to make business checks simple, reliable, and easy to use for real businesses. This helps facilitate smoother, trusted, and rule-abiding interactions, especially for marketplaces, online sales, home services, construction, and property management.
Mesh offers the following typical types of verification
Business Entity Verification
To provide radically accurate identity for 100% of registered businesses. The check reports whether this business exists and if it is a legitimate business entity. You can confirm the business name, address, and tax id. Mesh will match a combination of data from authoritative data sources and the Mesh Data Network and report on any minor or major mismatches.
License Verification
To validate professional licenses nationwide with a single API. This type of verification answers critical questions: is this business licensed, what type of license does it hold, are these business licenses currently active, and can notifications be provided if the licenses become inactive.
Insurance Verification
To live-track COIs and coverage information like is the business insured and if its status is valid. Mesh automates the process of contacting insurance agents to verify the certificate of insurance (COI) details from valid insurance providers.
Business Risk Assessments
To get up-to-date litigations, tax liens, UCC filings, and bankruptcy records accessing the latest insight about business status. This type of verification empowers companies to efficiently search for judgments, litigations, bankruptcy filings, and liens associated with any entity. This powerful tool enables informed decision-making, helping you mitigate potential risks and safeguard your business relationships.
How does it work
Usually, you can check each license or registration yourself. This involves checking them against various official records and agencies to make sure the information is correct and legal.
Though this process is fairly easy, it often requires knowing where to look, how to ask for information, and sometimes even signing up for a service that may require a paid subscription.
Mash makes this process easier by automating these steps. You just ask for the verification and then get the results in an easy-to-read format.
Mesh promises to provide a user friendly interface though for now they do not have anything finalised.
Mesh offers a product that can be customized to your brand, with options for batch processing or an API-only setup. As they say on their website: “We focus on creating solutions that fit your business needs from start to finish.”
The competitors
There aren’t many competitors offering similar services. Yoti (https://www.yoti.com/business/) is one of the few, but they focus more on personal identity verification while Mesh mainly focuses on verifying business identities. Anyway, Yoti has already raised £46M in 5 funding rounds and operates in the UK, Australia, Canada, India, US, and New Zealand.
The market
The market for verifying both personal and business identities appears to be rapidly expanding.
According to multiple sources, the global business identity verification market size is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. The market size was valued at $8.43 billion in 2021 and is predicted to reach $23.49 billion to $32.94 billion by 2029, increasing at a CAGR of 12.64% to 16.7% from 2022 to 2030.
Advice to founders
Why is it a good time to implement this business idea in your region, especially if you’re outside the US? It’s challenging to establish such a business globally. Every country has its language, legal specifics, and verification tools for licenses and certificates. Simply put, this e-service is not easily scalable across different geographies.
This fact means that similar startups can be set up in every country.. The process is simple:
- Find services that check official licenses and certificates;
- Create an API for these services;
- Make a user interface where customers can send documents for check and see the results.
Since there’s little competition in this niche worldwide, you have a great opportunity to become a leader in your country’s market. The best part is, if a global leader emerges in this market and expands to other regions (which is possible), you’ll still have a good chance to sell your company for a quick and profitable exit.
The founders
Diego Asenjo, CEO
Tony Bryan, CTO
The funding
Mesh Digital Services received two series of funding:
- Seed round – $5.7M on Feb 7, 2024, from Greycroft
- Pre-seed – $5.8M on Dec 7, 2022