Zurich — ETH spin-off PXL Vision has deve­lo­ped an arti­fi­cial intel­­li­­gence-based soft­ware plat­form for the secure and auto­ma­ted veri­fi­ca­tion of iden­ti­ties. Now the company is recei­ving CHF 4.6 million in a seed finan­cing round to expand its tech­no­logy and grow inter­na­tio­nally. The finan­cing round was led by SIX Fintech Ventures, with other inves­tors inclu­ding ZKB, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Arab Bank and expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels Beat Schil­lig and David Studer.

Every year, billi­ons of perso­nal data records are stolen and often used for frau­du­lent purpo­ses. Trust in digi­tal inter­ac­tions is ther­e­fore central, and more and more compa­nies are moving to iden­tify their custo­mers beyond doubt. To do this, they need digi­tal solu­ti­ons that are secure, cost-effec­­tive, easy to manage, and comply with regu­la­tory requirements.

Flexi­ble iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion in real time
PXL Vision has deve­lo­ped a digi­tal KYC veri­fi­ca­tion plat­form that is parti­cu­larly modu­lar compared to the compe­ti­tion and can ther­e­fore be used very flexi­bly by busi­ness custo­mers. The plat­form uses Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence to authen­ti­cate an iden­tity docu­ment via the smart­phone camera with mini­mal user inter­ac­tion and verify the user’s iden­tity via a liveness check and facial match with a video selfie. In addi­tion to Swis­sID, the leading Swiss iden­tity provi­der, major compa­nies such as Sunrise, Salt, UPC and ZKB also rely on PXL Vision’s technology.

There are many areas of appli­ca­tion for these compa­nies: From taking out a cell phone subscrip­tion online, regard­less of loca­tion, to opening bank accounts elec­tro­ni­cally in just a few minu­tes, such as with ZKB’s Frankly app for saving for retirement.

Growth finan­cing completed
Since its foun­da­tion three years ago, PXL Vision has estab­lished itself in the Swiss market. The team size has grown from four to over forty members and important entre­pre­neu­rial awards such as the Swiss Econo­mic Award 2019, the W.A. De Vigier Award 2019 and the Swiss­com Startup Chall­enge Award 2019 have been won. The company also successfully comple­ted both the SAP.iO and F10 Fintech Incu­ba­tor & Acce­le­ra­tor programs.

“Having proven that we can compete against large and estab­lished play­ers in a very compe­ti­tive market, it is now time to expand beyond the country’s borders,” said PXL Vision CEO Michael Born (photo: 2nd from left), who foun­ded the company in 2017 toge­ther with Nevena Shamoska (photo: 1st from left), Roxana Porada (photo: 4th from left), Lucas Sommer and Karim Nemr (photo: 3rd from left). The inter­di­sci­pli­nary and expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team had alre­ady worked toge­ther for seve­ral years at Dacuda AG and had successfully sold Dacuda assets to Florida-based Magic Leap before foun­ding PXL Vision in March 2017.

Andreas Iten, Head of SIX Fintech Ventures, who will support PXL Vision as a board member in the upco­ming growth phase.

Access to growth capi­tal will enable PXL Vision to further expand its product port­fo­lio and enter new markets and indus­tries. The funding is expec­ted to move PXL Vision forward quickly. “We are inves­t­ing prima­rily in the intel­li­gence and scala­bi­lity of our tech­no­logy, as well as in buil­ding the busi­ness inter­na­tio­nally. We will substan­ti­ally expand the sales, marke­ting and deve­lo­p­ment teams to further drive growth,” said Karim Nemr, PXL Vision’s chief busi­ness officer.

About PXL Vision
PXL Vision AG is a Swiss high-tech spin-off of the Swiss Fede­ral Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (ETH). PXL Vision provi­des leading solu­ti­ons for auto­ma­ting and impro­ving iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion and custo­mer onboar­ding through auto­ma­ted soft­ware solu­ti­ons based on the latest deve­lo­p­ments in compu­ter vision and machine lear­ning. PXL is head­quar­te­red in Zurich, Switz­er­land, and has R&D centers in Novi Sad, Serbia, and Yere­van, Armenia.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas.

More than EUR 2.4 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,500 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 compa­nies. Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the 32 companies.