My Big Idea: Building a global eID hub

‍Hi! What's your elevator pitch?

At Authologic, we’re building a global eID hub that eases the transition to government-issued digital IDs for businesses. Our secure, unified eID verification hub aggregates multiple verification methods - both traditional and eID. All this is accessed through a single API integration. It enables businesses to seamlessly verify identities using government-issued digital IDs and identity wallets, alongside existing Know Your Customer (KYC) methods. The result? Enhanced privacy, reduction in AI-fraud, and optimized onboarding for customers, all while helping businesses comply with fast-evolving regulations.

Why does the market need it?

There are three reasons. First, eIDs are already here and will soon become ubiquitous. In the UK, we’re seeing the government accelerate plans for its Gov.uk wallet, while in the EU eIDAS 2.0 regulations mean that every member state must offer some form of digital ID by the end of 2026. Some countries, like Poland, are ahead of the curve, with digital IDs already being used over 1 million times a day. As a result of this global acceleration towards digital IDs, businesses who have to do KYC will need to adapt, fast. Second, deepfakes and synthetic identities are driving an increase in fraud as they produce images and video good enough to fool traditional verification methods. And third, the KYC landscape is very fragmented, with a large number of vendors, multiple integrations, and differing regulatory approaches between countries.

We’re helping businesses solve their fragmentation and security challenges, and supporting them to adopt eIDs without the headache. Businesses desperately need the infrastructure to allow them to securely onboard and manage different forms of digital ID. Our solution has been built specifically to offer this interoperability, enabling businesses to harness the full benefits of digital ID adoption, while maintaining KYC and AML compliance. We’re currently the only eID aggregators providing a single, API-led solution that can do this.

Where is the business today?

We’re currently working with many companies, across the world and ranging from household names to start ups, to support them with digital ID adoption. At the same time, we’re supporting businesses to maintain traditional verification methods like OCR, liveness, and biometric checks, alongside digital IDs, through partnerships with various providers. Last year, we tripled our revenue and our platform is currently being used over 150,000 times a day.

We’re also excited to be contributing to a number of major EU-level infrastructure pilots that are helping shape how digital identity will work across different populations and industries.

What made you think there was money in this?

In Poland - where Authologic was born - eID adoption is already being widely embraced. Around 4 in 5 Poles are already using digital IDs and a national identity wallet, called mObywatel, is used by 25% of the population. Having witnessed the impact that digital ID adoption is having for businesses in the country, from enhanced security to increased efficiency, we set out to build a solution that would support any business, anywhere, to embrace digital IDs in the same way.

We understand that the transition to digital IDs is gradual; not everyone will suddenly be using eIDs overnight. But new regulations are moving us towards a global environment where eIDs are no longer a nice-to-have, but a must. Businesses need to be able to manage eID verification, while continuing to run their existing KYC processes in a safe and secure manner. The long-term benefits of digital IDs are vast. By supporting businesses to easily and securely adopt them, in line with evolving regulation, we’re helping them stay ahead of the curve and bridge the gap between traditional verification methods, eIDs and digital identity wallets.

What's your biggest strength?

Our biggest strength is the interoperability our eID Hub offers and the outcomes it enables. Through a single API-integration, customers can access multiple verification methods - including eIDs - across multiple countries, orchestrate them, create reports and analytics, and reduce the compliance headache as we maintain that side of things, too. I don’t know of anyone else who does all of this.

What is the secret to making the business work?

From a business perspective, we are customer-led. We spend the time with customers to really understand what their challenges and aspirations are - and we build around that - not just what we think is ‘cool.’ And I’m sure many companies say this, but actually doing it can be hard sometimes - especially when you have a really passionate and creative team. Also, even though we’re a remote-friendly business, we make sure our company culture is one of transparency, honesty (even when there is hard feedback to share) and being kind. We want to make sure that anyone who works at Authologic is happy to be here. Finally, we work really hard to maintain focus on where and how we grow - this can be one of the most difficult things - especially when you’re trying to grow fast and enquiries or referrals come from across the world.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

We’re lucky to be backed by some incredible investors, including OpenOcean, Y Combinator, and Peak Capital. We most recently secured an $8.2 million Series A. This funding is enabling us to continue expanding our product offering, grow our team and move into new markets.

Tell us about the business model

We operate in a slightly different way to the traditional models often seen elsewhere in the KYC industry. Our model works on a tiered approach, rather than making people overcommit to an annual number of checks, for example. And while we work direct, we also have an indirect channel, with partners ranging from reseller to referral. We’re finding this to be a good combination for our go to market. When it comes to implementation, we have some out-the-box options but we also enable customisation and whitelabelling for those times when customers don’t want their users to know what’s happening ‘behind the scenes.’

What were you doing before?

As co-founders, Krysztof, Marek and I go way back. Before starting Authologic, we founded ZenCard together in 2013, which we eventually sold to the largest bank in Poland, OP Bank. So, being founders isn’t new to us.

Are there any technologies you've found useful?

I think it’s an unsurprising answer here: Jira! This is one of the go-to tools for our product and engineering teams. Otherwise, we use pretty much the same tools you would expect a start up to use.

What is the future vision

Naturally, we want to be the leading, global eID hub! We know the KYC landscape is fragmented and we believe that it really doesn’t have to be. When it comes to eIDs, we are genuinely passionate about this, because after all, we don’t expect people to photograph their debit cards when they make a purchase online, so why should we make them photograph their ID when using online services?