By Kenneth Oboh

Challenges are building blocks that only a few realize. One such individual who knows how to turn trials into raw material is Zita Agwunobi. Her story is particularly striking because she is not just thriving, she has succeeded in building a tech firm with clients within and beyond the shores of Nigeria. To achieve this feat as the founder and product owner of Iverify.ng, she wrestled and defeated these challenges, and since August 2019, her firm has been doing wonders, especially in curbing identity fraud.

The many features of her firm

Iverify.ng provides services such as identity verification, due diligence and background check to clients within and outside Nigeria and so far over 1.2 million verification points have been carried out.
With these services, it has helped clients screen out applicants’ backgrounds, thus averting potential fraud and other criminal activities.

The firm has also designed and implemented a package with which organisations curb credential fraud by at least 40 per cent and through a pact with B2B organisations, Iverify has expanded verification coverage across Africa. Also, Iverify has organised market research and stakeholder engagements with institutional representatives to align their products and services with global standards.

The success stories that shine through

Agwunobi’s Iverify is behind the success stories of many organisations in the improvement of anomaly detection and the curbing of manual review by 25 per cent. It has also helped clients achieve year-over-year revenue growth while maintaining investor-ready projections.

It has also trained clients on digital credential verification. Over 30 of these training sessions have been held to help clients have a better understanding of how to recruit the right employees.

With the aid of its interactive dashboards, Iverify has aided clients in tracking fraud rates, turnaround time and making informed decisions with adequate data. Its in-depth data analyses have been used by clients to understand fraud patterns, and get insights for product designs and service delivery.

Its datasets have done more than cleaning institutions’ records; it has both transformed and standardized them to the extent that reporting accuracy has jumped from 82 per cent to 97 per cent. Thanks to its root cause analysis, clients have seen 30 per cent reduction in verification delays and the outcome is better correction protocols.

Her background as a technology attorney

What makes Agwunobi’s journey interesting is where it all began: Law. Between November 2011 and August 2019, she worked as a Technology Attorney/Cognate Solicitor. In these roles, she helped commercial banks to accelerate access to finance through the background checks and due diligence on customers, B2B customers or vendors who seek financial services or loans.

Agwunobi also helped to develop privacy frameworks that eliminated data breach.

She earned her law degree at the Imo State University, and completed the Nigerian Law School in 2006, and pursued an advanced LLM in International Commercial Law at Bournemouth University in England.

Gaining more grounds

Her experience with the banks opened her eyes to the need for a platform such as Iverify.
Scaling Iverify.ng required more than technology. It also demanded strategic positioning within global startup ecosystems so she threw herself into accelerator programmes and incubators, from the Hague Institute of Innovation of Law’s Justice Accelerator to Google for Startups, Women in Technology Africa Accelerator, Standard chartered bank Women in Technology incubation and the World Bank’s IFC SheWins Africa initiative.

These platforms not only provided funding and mentorship but have also positioned Iverify.ng within international conversations on digital identity, compliance, and inclusive growth. All these have helped Agwunobi earn recognition from global institutions.

She is a mentor for Google for Startups Accelerator, a facilitator with the Women Techmakers Development Programme in Sub-Saharan Africa, and an alumna of the World Bank’s SheWins for Women in Africa. She holds a Master’s degree in International Commercial Law in England, MSC in Management and Data Analysis from the University of North America and a diploma in Data Science.