In today’s world, trust is just as strategic as capital. For a player like Erable, committed to building a more transparent and sustainable financial ecosystem, ensuring that every funded company is legitimate and trustworthy is non-negotiable. This is where KYB (Know Your Business) comes in.
What is KYB?
While KYB is less known than its counterpart KYC (Know Your Customer), it's just as important, especially when you’re dealing with companies rather than individuals. KYB is the process of verifying a company’s legal existence, structure, leadership, and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs).
In practice, KYB helps you:
- Identify legal representatives and UBOs
- Confirm that the company is active and properly registered
- Access official records (e.g., trade registry documents, incorporation papers, financial statements)
Why It’s Crucial Today
For investment organizations, skipping the KYB step introduces real risks:
- Funding a project managed by a fake or dissolved entity
- Getting involved with individuals tied to legal or reputational issues
- Failing regulatory audits due to missing or unverifiable information
And when you're operating in the realm of responsible finance, these risks are simply unacceptable.
How We Use KYB at Erable
At Erable, we fund impact-driven projects through platforms like We Do Good and Keenest. From the beginning, we knew we needed a clear, reliable verification process, especially at the funding stage.
But instead of relying on time-consuming manual checks, we chose to automate the KYB process, using a tool that’s as simple as it is robust: Semaphore.
A Perfectly Timed Match
We discovered Semaphore during their launch at Schoolab. Their promise was simple: make business verification as easy as an API call. Within seconds, we could:
- Search for a business by name or registration number
- Access full company profiles (legal status, address, formation documents…)
- Identify directors and UBOs
- Download official records
And all of this works globally, pulling data directly from official business registries.
The Real-World Impact for Erable
Since integrating Semaphore into our workflow, we’ve experienced:
- Significant time savings in our due diligence process
- Lower risk exposure, thanks to real-time, official data
- Increased trust internally and from co-investors and ecosystem partners
It also sends a strong message to the projects we support: transparency isn’t just required, it’s a shared value.
KYB as a Cornerstone of Responsible Investing
We believe this firmly: you can’t build responsible finance without clear, accessible verification practices. With tools like Semaphore, these processes are no longer reserved for large institutions, they’re accessible to any agile fund or platform.
By integrating KYB into your workflow, you're not just protecting your operations, you're actively shaping a financial ecosystem built on trust, integrity, and accountability.
Learn more about Semaphore: https://getsemaphore.com
