Grant Thornton has taken a majority stake in Cork based regtech firm, valid8Me, in an investment worth €12.5m.
The money is to be used by the startup to grow its staffing and speed up its growth in Ireland and abroad.
The development means that the digital identity platform now aims to double its headcount of 30 by the end of next year.
"We view the valid8Me platform as complementary to a number of our service lines and specifically addresses the needs of our clients across a number of sectors including financial services, legal, accounting, wealth management and real estate among others," said Mick McAteer, Managing Partner of Grant Thornton Ireland."
"We are excited to build our product and service offering in these sectors and bring real innovative solutions to our clients."
Founded last year by chief executive Patrick Horgan and chief product officer Ciaran Corkery, Valid8Me help individuals and corporations to securely store, share and manage their key Know-Your-Customer related data.
It claims to be able to reduce customer onboarding costs by up to 50% and onboarding times by up to 90%.
Its platform supports over 10,000 different document templates from 248 different countries and territories.
"This investment from Grant Thornton Ireland, combined with their global reach and multisector expertise, will act as a transformational partner in accelerating valid8Me's ambitious high-growth strategy," said Patrick Horgan.
"Grant Thornton truly understands valid8Me’s vision to become the universal defacto standard for digital identity globally."
