Duna Secures €30M Series A to Revolutionize Business Identity Verification
In a significant development within the fintech sector, Duna, a startup specializing in business identity verification, has successfully raised €30 million in a Series A funding round. This investment positions Duna as the most well-funded European member of the Stripe mafia, a term denoting the network of former Stripe employees who have ventured into entrepreneurship. The funding round was spearheaded by CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth fund, which has a history of supporting Stripe since co-leading its Series D in 2016.
Duna was co-founded by ex-Stripe employees Duco van Lanschot and David Schreiber and operates out of Germany and the Netherlands. The company aims to streamline the onboarding process for fintech firms by offering efficient business identity verification services. This approach addresses common challenges such as customer churn associated with corporate ID checks and fraud prevention measures. Notably, Duna’s clientele includes prominent companies like Plaid.
While Stripe itself is not a client of Duna, the startup has garnered support from several of its current and former executives. Angel investors in Duna include Michael Coogan, Stripe’s current COO, and former executives David Singleton (CTO) and Claire Hughes Johnson (COO). Additionally, executives from Adyen, a competitor in the payments space, have invested in Duna, with CRCO Mariëtte Swart and CFO Ethan Tandowsky participating as angel investors.
Van Lanschot believes that companies like Stripe and Adyen are unlikely to develop competing products due to the intricate, customizable nature of business onboarding processes. He stated, It requires such fine-grained controls that change on a company-by-company basis, that an Adyen or a Stripe isn’t going to spin out their business onboarding as a separate product where another enterprise customer can change all of the configurations.
Duna’s long-term vision extends beyond individual client solutions. The company aspires to create a global trust infrastructure, effectively providing a digital passport for businesses. This system would enable companies to reuse their verified identity information across multiple platforms, simplifying processes like opening bank accounts or onboarding with other fintech services. Van Lanschot elaborated, What we want to build over time is a global trust infrastructure where we provide a digital passport for every business. So you can reuse your file from onboarding on [German spend management platform] Moss to onboard with Plaid, or you can reuse it to open up a bank account.
This ambitious goal resonated with Alex Nichols, the general partner at CapitalG who led the investment. Nichols emphasized the importance of network effects and scale advantages in his investment decisions, noting that Duna’s approach exemplifies these factors. He remarked, I would say the common thing I look for in my investments are some sort of network effects, or more formal scale advantage. I also love it when founders have an earned insight about a problem they may not know about otherwise, and this is a very good example of that.
Duna operates in the Know Your Business (KYB) sector, facing competition from companies like Jumio and Veriff. However, Nichols highlighted Duna’s unique strategy of generating its own data rather than aggregating existing, often inadequate, data sources. He described this as a rare opportunity to rebuild foundational systems akin to Visa, creating a substantial business in the process.
The startup has already demonstrated a strong business case by helping clients onboard corporate users more quickly and cost-effectively. This success has encouraged existing investors to increase their stakes, with Index Ventures, which led Duna’s €10.7 million seed round in May 2025, participating in the Series A. Other investors include Puzzle Ventures and Snowflake chairman Frank Slootman.
To achieve its broader vision, Duna is focusing on identifying patches of networks—small clusters of companies with overlapping relationships. These could include manufacturing firms with shared customers, investment firms with common limited partners, or companies operating within the same small country. In these interconnected groups, the ability to reuse verification becomes immediately valuable, even before achieving full network effects.
Van Lanschot highlighted the significant opportunity within even small markets, noting that in the Netherlands alone, the four largest banks employ 14,000 people in compliance roles, with half focusing on business-related tasks. While Duna doesn’t aim to fully replace these positions, its AI-driven automation can reduce costs and generate revenue even before network effects fully materialize.
Looking ahead, if Duna successfully establishes the infrastructure for an identity network, it could enable one-click business onboarding, similar to Amazon’s one-click checkout or Stripe Link in the B2B sector. This potential underscores the enduring influence of Stripe’s legacy within Duna’s strategic direction.
