Shufti is an AI-powered identity verification provider headquartered in London, offering a full compliance lifecycle platform spanning onboarding, authentication, and ongoing monitoring. The company serves more than 2,000 businesses across 240+ countries and territories and provides 17+ products covering areas including KYC, KYB, AML screening, biometrics, document verification, transaction monitoring, and digital identity. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Shufti CEO and Co-Founder Shahid Hanif to learn more.
Shahid Hanif’s Background
When asked about his background and the experiences that led him to Shufti, Hanif shared:
I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Shufti, a provider headquartered in London. I studied Artificial Intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire and later specialized further in machine learning at the University of Edinburgh.
Before founding Shufti, I co-founded Programmers Force, where I focused on scaling the business globally and driving innovation in RegTech SaaS development. I later served as CTO of Quickbit, leading technological advancements and playing a key role in the company’s IPO. I founded Shufti in 2017 after experiencing firsthand how inefficient and cumbersome manual KYC processes could be. I spent seven years as CTO building the company’s AI and machine learning platform from the ground up, and in January 2025 I stepped into the role of CEO. Today Shufti serves more than 2,000 businesses across 240+ countries and territories.
How Shufti Started
When asked how the idea for the company came together, Hanif explained:
We were on the buying side first. In our earlier ventures, we used identity verification services ourselves, and the experience was frustrating. Verification was slow, too much of it was manual, and nothing worked consistently across countries or in non-Latin languages. So we built a tool for our own use.
Once it was running, we realized the same problem existed for every business onboarding customers online, and that we could offer this to the world. That became Shufti in 2017. We have never looked back.
Building A Global Company
When asked about his favorite memory working for the company so far, Hanif recalled:
It is hard to pick one. Over nearly a decade, every launch, every event, and every excited client has been part of it. If I had to choose, it is the contrast between two moments.
In the beginning, there were five of us around a single table, united behind one cause. Today Shufti supports around 1,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and the platform is recognized as a leader in identity verification.
Watching that one table become a global company is the memory I keep coming back to.
Core Products And Features
When asked about Shufti’s core products and features, Hanif detailed:
Our core product is the platform itself. Shufti is a full compliance lifecycle platform that takes a business from onboarding through authentication to ongoing monitoring, all from one place.
Within that platform, we offer 17+ products: KYC verification, KYB verification, AML screening, facial biometrics, document verification, Travel Rule, age verification, VideoIdent (Video KYC), Deepfake detection, address verification, eIDV, Fast ID for reusable digital identity, 1:1 biometric authentication, behavioral biometrics, device fingerprinting, transaction trust monitoring, AMLR Solution, and e-signature.
Because everything runs on a single platform, businesses do not need to stitch together multiple vendors. A no-code Journey Builder sits on top, so clients can build custom verification flows with drag-and-drop and adapt them as regulatory requirements change.
Responding To AI-Driven Fraud
When asked about recent challenges in identity verification and how Shufti has responded, Hanif noted:
Generative AI has changed the world, and it has put our industry in a race that never ends. Deepfakes, AI-generated documents, and synthetic identities have made identity fraud faster, cheaper, and easier to scale. A flat image of a document is no longer proof of anything.
We have responded in three ways. First, we own our entire tech stack in-house, including liveness, matching, OCR, and storage, which lets us respond to new threats faster than competitors built on aggregated third-party components.
Second, we built a four-layer defense against deepfakes and injection attacks, combining passive liveness, active liveness, 3D depth analysis, and injection detection.
Third, we moved from one-time verification to continuous identity assurance. That includes a Face Deepfake Detection Audit, available on AWS Marketplace, which lets companies rescan historic KYC selfies from 2020 to 2025 to catch AI-generated faces and manipulated imagery that passed earlier controls.
Technology Evolution
When asked how Shufti’s technology has evolved since launching, Hanif explained:
Three things used to be hard in this industry: speed, accuracy, and global coverage. None of them is an issue for us today.
Face authentication now completes in around five seconds and a full KYC check in 15 to 30 seconds. Accuracy sits above 98.67 percent with a false match rate below 0.001 percent.
Coverage spans 240+ countries and territories, more than 10,000 document types and over 150 languages, and our models use zero-shot learning to pick up new document formats in minutes rather than months.
Getting there took years of building every layer ourselves, from OCR to liveness to storage.
Major Company Milestones
When asked about some of Shufti’s most significant milestones, Hanif highlighted:
- Honorable Mention in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Identity Verification, cited for the diversity of documents and countries we can process.
- First European company, and third globally, to achieve iBeta Level 3 conformance for passive liveness detection, with 0 percent error rates on both iOS and Android.
- Ranked in the top 5 of 16 providers in the DHS Remote Identity Validation Rally 2025, one of only five to meet all Phase 1 selfie biometrics performance goals.
- Dual Leader in the Liminal Index 2026 for both age verification and age estimation.
- Recognized as a Leader in identity verification on G2.
- Industry awards for Best Fraud Prevention Solution and SaaS Company Of The Year.
- $20 million Series A in March 2022, led by Updata Partners, after five years of bootstrapped growth.
ACU Customer Success
When asked to share a specific customer success story, Hanif said:
One I am proud of comes from the Caribbean. Working with Axioma, our implementation partner in the region, we helped ACU become the first financial institution in the Caribbean to offer fully digital onboarding.
In a market where opening an account had always meant paperwork and branch visits, that is a genuine shift, and it shows what this technology can do well beyond the major financial centers.
Funding
When asked about Shufti’s funding and revenue metrics, Hanif shared:
We bootstrapped the company from 2017 to 2022. In March 2022, we raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Updata Partners to accelerate worldwide expansion and product development.
We do not disclose revenue figures.
Market Opportunity
When discussing the total addressable market Shufti is pursuing, Hanif said:
We estimate our total addressable market at approximately $89.4 billion across identity verification and fraud prevention. Both markets keep expanding as regulation tightens and AI-driven fraud grows.
Competitive Differentiation
When asked what differentiates Shufti from its competition, Hanif emphasized:
- Full in-house tech stack. Liveness, matching, OCR, and storage are all built and owned by Shufti with zero third-party dependencies, enabling faster threat response than competitors assembled from aggregated components.
- First European company and third globally to reach iBeta Level 3 for passive liveness, with 0 percent error rates on both iOS and Android, and the only Level 3 provider tested across both legacy and modern consumer devices. Top 5 in the DHS RIVR 2025 evaluation.
- Dual Leader in the Liminal Index 2026 for age verification and age estimation, with exceptional rankings in market presence and strategy, plus KJM-approved age verification in Germany, a mandatory regulatory requirement few competitors hold.
- World’s Largest eIDV Database with the coverage of 4.29 billion identities across 85+ countries. Along with the biggest Docless POA Database.
- The broadest coverage in the industry. 240+ countries and territories, 10,000+ active document types, 150+ languages. With speed without compromise. Face authentication in around five seconds, full KYC in 15 to 30 seconds, 98.67+ percent accuracy, and a false match rate below 0.001 percent.
- One platform, every deployment. 17+ products from a single platform with a no-code Journey Builder, deployable in the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid on the same architecture, unlike cloud-only competitors that fail regulated buyer reviews. Fast ID adds reusable digital identity, replacing passwords and OTPs with a single face scan.
- Trusted by users, validated by third parties. Rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from more than 4,000 reviews, with independent validation spanning iBeta, DHS, Liminal, KuppingerCole, Gartner and KJM. No single competitor matches that combination.
Future Goals
When discussing Shufti’s future goals, Hanif explained:
Our goal is to become the first truly Glocal platform: one global infrastructure with genuine local depth in every market.
That means local documents, local languages, local regulations and local deployment options served from a single platform rather than a patchwork of regional vendors.
Most providers are either global or local. We intend to be both.
Preparing For AMLR
When invited to discuss another topic, Hanif concluded:
AMLR, which I see as the future of compliance in Europe. The EU’s new anti-money laundering regulation replaces fragmented national rules with a single rulebook, applies from July 2027.
It will reshape how every obliged entity in Europe runs KYC and screening, and most firms are underestimating the work involved.
We have invested heavily in AMLR readiness, and I am always happy to go deep on what it changes and how businesses should prepare.
