Lithuanian startup Ondato, which offers know-your-customer (KYC) solutions, has closed a pre-seed round and attracted €450K from the Startup Wise Guys accelerator fund.

Ondato, founded in 2016, is developing remote KYC and compliance solutions, which help identify both private individuals and legal entities, review data registers and fully authenticate the client in line with the highest security and reliability requirements. In 2019, Ondato was recognised as the fintech company of the year at the German-Lithuanian Business Awards, and was among the Top 10 Scale Ups in Eastern Europe.

The startup is currently offering services to both traditional finance institutions and to private financial technology companies operating or interested in operating in cyberspace. In the face of COVID-19, Ondato has adapted the technologies it is developing for use in insurance companies, the attorney segment and state institutions, helping them continue to provide services during the pandemic.

Ondato is currently placing significant emphasis on money laundering and prevention, as well as developing its client authentication compliance management platform, which helps financial institutions and other organisations match more than 15 different requirements. This further manages client information and periodically checks it, creating reports and other processes necessary for financial institutions.

Ondato founder and head Liudas Kanapienis assures that the new investment will contribute to even greater technological development, and entry into the Polish and German markets.

“The Startup Wise Guys accelerator fund will grant our startup the opportunity to grow even faster and expand into other countries. We are already one of the leading KYC platforms in the Baltic States, we are trusted and our services are already used by the largest banks such as Luminor, SEB, Swedbank, other financial and insurance companies and various startups,” said founder Kanapienis.

Dmirtrij Sosunov, partner at the Startup Wise Guys accelerator fund, has commented that before the arrival of the pandemic KYC solutions were already a key part of all businesses, and in the face of COVID-19, the need to supply services in electronic space and suitably identify one’s clients has been even further emphasised.

Sosunov went on: “The decision to invest was based on the Ondato team, which has vast experience in the fintech domain and which does not limit itself to successfully operating in the Baltic States, seriously aiming for the global market. We see that Ondato is unafraid to innovate and offers its clients new products which resolve key and expensive problems related to client verification and compliance (KYC and AML)”.