Finally, identity verification vendor Onfido has raised $50 million in new funding from Salesforce Ventures among others. Total raise is now $100 million. Onfido verifies consumer identities remotely by comparing a video selfie against a photo of a government identity document. It uses AI to ensure the document is authentic and that the person in the selfie matches the photo ID.
Here’s a leftover from yesterday’s identity news: Okta, which offers enterprise identity solutions, has launched a $50 million investment fund to nurture identity and privacy innovations. Investments include Trusted Key, a blockchain-based digital identity company. Separately, Okta announced a modular Identity Engine that lets users construct custom identity experiences. Don’t get too excited: the identity engine won’t be ready until the second half of 2019.
CDP Lytics is also highlighting its ability to use the data it assembles, in its case by launching a feature to identify audience segments with high or low conversion probabilities. The company, which raised a $35 million Series C in February, promises more insight features later this year. It hasn’t (yet) renamed itself as a Customer Data Insight Platform.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.