In addition to the growing risk posed by data breaches, enterprise security teams have to fend off the increasingly sophisticated online fraud methods being deployed by cybercriminals. Evident ID Inc. hopes to mitigate this threat by making it easier for companies to verify that potential suppliers, customers and employees are whom they say they are.

The three-year-old startup today announced that it has raised a $20 million funding round to step up its efforts. The investment was led by Aspect Ventures with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Blue Cloud Ventures and Internet Security Systems founder Tom Noonan.

Evident ID provides a cloud-based platform that is used by companies such as Airbnb Inc. to verify the identities of the various external parties they work with. It uses artificial intelligence to check credentials such as business addresses against trusted records. According to Evident, the platform aggregates thousands of thousands of identify-related data types from thousands of sources.

The startup is targeting a broad range of use cases. Manufacturers, for instance, can harness Evident to verify parts suppliers before entering into a purchase agreement. A startup competing in the ride-hailing market, meanwhile, could use the platform to check the identification and license details submitted by drivers when they apply to join its platform. Evident ID also provides facial recognition features to help corroborate documents.

The startup makes its capabilities available through a web-based portal and an application programming interface that enables companies to process verification requests inside own services. According to Evident ID, the number of customers using its platform has tripled over the past year.

Evident ID will use the capital to expand its operations and establish a bigger presence in vertical markets such as healthcare. The investment comes just three months after Socure Inc., a competing identify verification startup, raised a $30 million funding round of its own led by Scale Venture Partners.

Evident ID has raised a total of $28.8 million to date.

Photo: Evident ID