12. Onfido

Founders: Husayn Kassai, Ruhul Amin and Eamon Jubbawy
Founded: August 2012
Website: www.onfido.com

After plenty of experience working in the city Husayn Kassai, Ruhul Amin and Eamon Jubbawy were all too familiar with the slow, frustrating and cumbersome process of performing background checks on job applicants – the market was crying out for an automated data-driven service.

Using funding from Oxford University they launched Onfido, an automated, online background checker. With the goal of democratising access to the service, it operates on a pay-as-you-go model, with clients only paying for each check carried out. Around 500 organisations use the service including large recruitment firm Hays and cleaning company (and fellow Startups 100 entry Hassle). Unlike traditional background checking companies, which rely on labour intensive human data processers, Onfido automatically aggregates and delivers data in a fast and cost effective manner.

Having recently raised VC backing from Wellington Partners and Crunchfund, the company plans to invest heavily in technology and expand its teams in its London and US offices ahead of further international expansion. The only problem with being a global business is that the quality of checks relies on the data infrastructure of each country. Provided they can overcome this small issue, becoming the world’s go to destination for background checks should be a breeze.