Kaarel Kotkas

Invests in

Circular EconomyClimate TechCreator EconomyEnterprise SoftwareFintechFuture of WorkGamingMarketplaces

Investments

Per curated public sources.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Kaarel Kotkas?

He is the Estonian founder and CEO of Veriff, an AI-assisted identity-verification and trust-infrastructure company founded in 2015. He previously co-founded the Sants student gig marketplace and Bevoke, and he is an early-stage technology investor.

Did Kotkas found Veriff alone?

Kotkas originated and legally established Veriff in 2015 and remains its founder and CEO. Janer Gorohhov joined in 2016, became the operational counterpart and is consistently recognized as co-founder. The most accurate account preserves Kotkas's 2015 origin and Gorohhov's later co-founder contribution.

What inspired Veriff?

Kotkas links it to two experiences: defeating a weak age check with an edited ID as a teenager and testing false-ID defenses for TransferWise in 2015. The latter became a summer coding effort and convinced him that remote verification needed thousands of signals and continuous evidence rather than a few static photos.

What did he build before Veriff?

His documented ventures were Sants, a 2013 student marketplace for short jobs, and Bevoke, incorporated in 2015 after a wallet-sized power-bank business and later repurposed as a startup investment vehicle. Claims that Veriff was exactly his twelfth project come from his broad count of experiments, not twelve fully documented companies.

How did Veriff become a unicorn?

After an early banking/e-Residency product and three initially profitable years, Veriff used Y Combinator W18 to sharpen US product-market fit, raised $69 million in 2021 and closed a $100 million Series C in January 2022. The latter valued the company at $1.5 billion and brought disclosed funding to $200 million.

Is Veriff profitable?

Veriff said its global business became profitable while exceeding $100 million revenue in 2025. The Estonian operating entity's audited 2025 filing still shows a €8.0 million loss on €78.5 million revenue, so the answer depends on entity, period and metric; both figures are retained and not forced into false equivalence.

Did Veriff conduct layoffs under Kotkas?

Yes. It cut 63 roles in May 2020, 66 roles in February 2023 and about 101 globally in August 2023. Kotkas tied the later reductions to slower-than-planned growth, excessive hiring and a shift toward efficiency; the 2024 interview record discusses the aftermath rather than hiding it.

Was Veriff involved in a data breach?

A November 2025 incident in Veriff systems exposed government-ID images and some address/birth-date data for 8,583 Total Wireless customers. Official notices say Veriff secured systems and retained outside cybersecurity help. Proposed class actions were pending at review; their negligence allegations were not adjudicated, and no source established personal misconduct by Kotkas.

What does Kotkas believe about AI and fraud?

He treats AI as both attacker and defense. His preferred architecture combines more than 1,000 signals with model automation and human feedback; he argues humans remain necessary for context, hallucination and bias control, while single-image or employee intuition is inadequate against deepfakes.

Which investments are documented?

Public company, round, register or ecosystem sources support Modash, Lightyear, Woola, KOOS, SEON, Yera, Ready Player Me and Yaga. Evidence quality varies: several are independently named round participations, several are visible in Bevoke's Estonian holdings, and SEON relies on an ecosystem list plus round reporting that names Veriff executives collectively.

What is his investment check size?

A 2022 Estonian Startup Awards investor nomination stated a €15,000-€50,000 seed focus. No current mandate or company-by-company checks were found, so total round values must not be presented as his tickets and the historical range should be re-confirmed before outreach.

Has he had an investment exit?

Ready Player Me was acquired by Netflix in December 2025, making it the one documented portfolio-company exit. Terms, his ownership at closing and personal proceeds were not disclosed; calling it a profitable realized return would go beyond the evidence.

What boards and community roles does he hold?

His formal Estonian governance roles are mostly Veriff, its acquired Vespia entity and personal holding/investment vehicles. Creative Destruction Lab lists him as a Digital Society associate, and registry evidence shows he helped found Sõru Merekooli Selts, a Hiiumaa youth sailing nonprofit. No broad independent public-company board portfolio was verified.

Where does Kaarel Kotkas work?

Kaarel Kotkas is Co-founder of Veriff.