Sekura.id is a Norfolk start-up which has seen rapid growth in the five years since its launch, becoming a globally recognised mobile identity company with offices across the globe.
The company, founded in 2019 in Aylsham, works directly with mobile network operators to securely handle the subscriber data of up to 2.5 billion customers with around 75 operators across the world.
Its SAFr (Sekura API framework) platform helps to verify mobile users’ identities securely, without the need for usernames, passwords or two-factor authentication. Instead, it analyses 66 separate data signals available from each SIM card, allowing firms to verify whether the person they’re interacting with is who they say they are. Sekura.id calls this a ‘humanised login’.
The platform also detects fraud in real time, preventing first-party fraud, SIM swaps, phishing attacks, APP fraud and more using SIM cards and live mobile network operator records.
“It’s not just fraud prevention, although that’s obviously a fair chunk of what we do and that’s great for the companies we work with,” said Sekura.id’s head of global marketing Matt Cooper. “But in terms of people, what we’re trying to do is get rid of the username, the account, the password, the two-factor authentication – all of that just becoming you simply having a mobile phone number and using an app.”
Although the company is now operating on a global scale, it still sees Norfolk as its home. It even became a Norwich City Football Club shirt and stand sponsor last year.
“We have people in India, Africa and in the US. We also have an office in Chester, but our head office is Aylsham, and our CEO believes that all of the talent that we need can be found on our doorstep,” said Matt.
“We’ve found developers, marketers, salespeople, partner and product teams – every part of our team – in and around Norfolk. We will take on people with transferable skills and bring them into the business.”
Matt added that the team is more than holding its own in a market with huge corporate competitors and clients dealing with millions of customers’ private data.
“We get an awful lot of people that when they talk to us are quite surprised that we’re doing it all from a base in Norfolk.”
For a small company doing such big things, being named both Growth Business of the Year, sponsored by Ashtons Legal, and Rising Star of the Year, sponsored by Birketts, at the EDP Business Awards 2023 certainly helped to put Sekura.id in the spotlight, Matt explained.
“It was terrific to be recognised.
“The stakes are really quite high for everything that we do. We deal with major banks, major financial and fintech institutions. There’s so much work that has to be done by every single part of the team. There’s so much potential and we’re all working towards that potential at 100 miles an hour. So, to have that recognised, even just a little bit, is great.
“What we’re now working towards is global recognition.”
Matt explained that one of Sekura.id’s largest aims currently is to increase the SAFr platform’s coverage.
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“We currently cover about 2.5 billion people across six continents. Our aim is that by the end of quarter two we’d like to be connected to around four billion people,” Matt said, adding that Sekura.id has a long-term aim to “be in a position where we can cover everybody in the world!”
“Our other ambition is ‘humanising’ logins,” he added. “So that one day, thanks to us, people will say ‘oh remember when we used to use passwords?’. That would be our biggest ambition – that passwords are simply a thing of the past.”
For more information, please visit sekura.id
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