Kaarel Kotkas

Kaarel Kotkas is the founder and chief executive of Veriff, an Estonian company whose software checks people’s identities online using document checks, biometrics, and liveness detection. He grew up on Hiiumaa, Estonia’s second-largest island, and started Veriff after learning firsthand how easily online ID checks could be fooled.

The twine order

His family farm used twine to tie hay bales, and collecting it was his job. At 14 he went looking for biodegradable twine online, and the store declined his order because he was underage. He edited the birth year on a copy of his ID from 1994 to 1984, sent it again, and the twine arrived. “This was the first time I experienced how low the barriers to online identification were and how easily the system can be tricked,” he told SafetyDetectives.

He had wanted to be a doctor. He ran a lawn-mowing service at ten and a power-bank business as a teenager, according to Startup Guide.

Testing TransferWise

While finishing high school he did a case study for TransferWise, now Wise, that involved testing its security with a false ID. He spent the summer writing code to close the gap and founded Veriff on October 20, 2015, according to the company’s history. His case for the company is short: “It’s too easy to pretend to be someone and we face a problem, there is no trust online.”

Building from Estonia

Veriff now has teams in Tallinn, San Francisco, New York, Denver, London, Barcelona, Singapore, and São Paulo. He credits Estonia’s close founder community, where he says people follow through on helping each other. “The world doesn’t need another Silicon Valley,” he said.

He was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Estonia in 2020 and made the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in 2023. Looking back, he compares his path to “the rearview mirror in the car: it’s so much cleaner than the windscreen.”