Nigerian digital identity startup, Seamfix, has concluded plans to expand its operations into five African countries, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Uganda, after securing $4.5 million investment funding.

Co-founder and CEO of the platform, Chimezie Emewulu, who made the announcement in a statement, the plans are parts of the long term ambition of the startup to take its operations to the wider African market.

“By leveraging technology to make digital identity easy, Seamfix helps thousands of businesses around the world offer better services to millions of end customers,” Emewulu said.

“From financial participation and efficiency in government services to public health and job creation, digital ID and verification systems are a fundamental driver of economic growth on the continent, and Seamfix has been at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge end-to-end digital ID and credentials solutions for connecting businesses and individuals to the disparate identity databases in Africa and across the world,” he added.

Seamfix which was founded in 2007 by the duo of Emewulu and Chibuzor Onwurah, provides identity management, data capture and process automation solutions for large businesses and government agencies across the world.

The company has been consistent in delivering a wide range of solutions for organisations such as Veremark, Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), MTN, Glo, Airtel 9 Mobile, United Bank for Africa, Interswitch, and Union Bank, enabling them and their customers globally to seamlessly create, verify and access trusted digital identities and services.

Delving into the history of the startup, Emewulu said Seamfix was focused on building custom products that digitised the workflow of organisations.

It wasn’t until 2010 that it pivoted to building identity management solutions.

“A client project, which involved building a university ID impersonation solution, made us realise the identity problem on the continent,” said Emewulu.

“Digital identity remains an issue in Africa, with over 542 million people without identity cards. This means digital ID and verification systems are crucial to unlocking significant economic value across Africa’s growing and increasingly digital societies.

“A recent report suggests that African countries that implement effective digital ID systems can boost their GDP by up to 13 per cent.

“Our goal is to provide a central hub for identity management in Africa to power trade within the region and with Africans. Using it, governments, corporate organisations, and individuals can verify the identities of entities it transacts with.

“Seamfix’s key achievements include the successful development of a digital solution enabling widespread access to National Identification Numbers (NINs) for more than 100 million Nigerians, while it has also helped Nigerian telecommunications services providers to register and verify a database of over 200 million Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) to comply with Nigerian Communications Commissions regulations.

“We currently work with major telcos across Africa on SIM registration, verification and linkage to national identities. Thousands of fintechs and SMEs rely on Seamfix’s verification APIs for KYC checks during customer onboarding and employee background checks,” Emewulu added.

Emewulu said the capital would be used to scale the technology infrastructure that underpins Seamfix’s solutions, improve data flow crucial for continental trade and integration, and kickstart the expansion of its digital ID and credential services into five new African countries.

“The new funding represents our first institutional investment and it will enable us to expand our services to Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Uganda,” he said.