Niva emerges from stealth to tackle global business identity
The problem
The rapid growth and digitization of cross-border commerce, estimated at over $150T in payments, have introduced significant complexities and risks, especially for companies operating in multiple countries. Over 97% of these transactions are between businesses, and verifying business identity—by screening for fraud and meeting local and international Know Your Business (KYB) requirements—is a major point of friction.
The current process is almost entirely manual, flawed, and varies widely from country to country. Teams of analysts carry out tedious manual procedures to investigate each business and interpret the complex local legal and financial documents submitted by these businesses. This already cumbersome process is made harder by businesses often submitting incorrect information and documents, leading to weeks of back-and-forth emails between our customers and the businesses applying to use their products.
Introducing Niva
At Niva, our mission is to accelerate global commerce by making it effortless to trust legitimate businesses anywhere in the world.
We leverage modern AI to build a universal identity layer that enables trust between businesses globally. With instant, reliable, and borderless business verification, we aim to create unprecedented opportunities for businesses worldwide, unlocking the next level of economic growth and innovation.
Things are moving fast
We’ve raised more than $3.3 million in funding led by Google’s AI-focused venture fund, Gradient Ventures, with participation from Picus Capital, Canary, Gilgamesh Ventures, and key executives from Chime, Deel, Enigma, and Faire among others. Our platform is already being used by a number of fast-growing international fintechs, including Xepelin and Aplazo, one of Mexico’s largest BNPL providers.
“We’re thrilled to invest in Niva as they leverage the recent innovations in large-language models to solve one of the most complex problems out there - quality data on businesses internationally,” said Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient. “Poor data stands in the way of offering credit and financial opportunities to businesses large and small. I can’t wait to see the transformative impact this platform has on the industry and the world.”
By leveraging the compliance and fraud AI agents on Version 0 of Niva’s platform, our customers have been able to automate these hairy processes of verifying a business. Our product suite is helping them:
- Increase application conversion rates: Features like pre-filled applications and instant document validation on upload prevent weeks of unnecessary back-and-forth. More applications are completed, sooner.
- Unlock worry-free scale: Our platform reduces the average application processing time from days to less than 10 minutes, all while increasing compliance and anti-fraud standards.
- Reduce fraud: Our models identify sophisticated fraud patterns by analyzing a 360-degree view on each business. Our AI agents capture information from dozens of public and private data sources, including government registries, company websites, social media, third-party reviews and ratings, and local news outlets.
“Streamlining KYB has always been core to our business,” said Sebastian Kreis, CEO and Founder of Xepelin, one of the fastest growing B2B fintechs in Latin America. “In just a few months, Niva’s AI has been able to accelerate our onboarding to the next level. It’s clear that the team has deep experience in the domain and we’re excited about the continued partnership.”
About the team
We have over 15 years of experience building and scaling early stage, high-growth products.
Prior to starting Niva, Abhi had been building business data for over 4 years, most recently as a General Manager at Enigma, one of the leading vendors of SMB data in the United States. As a founding member of Enigma’s business data product, he helped grow the company to eight figures in revenue. During this journey, he witnessed countless customers asking for a product that could also support them in other countries and markets.
Akhil brings more than a decade of experience as a leader at hyper-growth fintechs. He was most recently a Director of Engineering at Chime, where he led the development of critical new credit products. Previously, he was an engineering leader at Coinbase and an early team member at Gusto. At Gusto, he became strongly aware of the need for reliable business verification, recognizing this necessity even before the term KYB (Know Your Business) was widely used.
We’d love to work with you
We’re just getting started on making it effortless to trust any business anywhere in the world.
- If you’re interested in learning how our platform can help you scale, visit our website www.niva.co and book a demo here.
- If you’d like to join the team, we’re hiring! Find our latest open roles here.
