Anthropic and OpenAI could also be rivals, however their presidents Daniela Amodei and Gregory Brockman have one factor in widespread: they’re each Stripe alumni. With former staff who went on to create dozens of startups, the fintech firm has grow to be one of the vital prolific “founder factories” — and the cash is following. The newest instance: enterprise id verification startup Duna, which simply raised a €30 million Sequence A to grow to be the best-funded European member of the so-called “Stripe mafia.” The funding spherical was led by Alphabet’s development fund CapitalG, which has additionally backed Stripe since co-leading its Sequence D in 2016.
Primarily based in Germany and the Netherlands, Duna was co-founded by Stripe alumni Duco van Lanschot and David Schreiber. With prospects together with Plaid, the startup helps fintech firms onboard enterprise prospects extra effectively, decreasing the standard churn related to company ID checks and different fraud prevention measures.
Stripe just isn’t a buyer of Duna, van Lanschot mentioned, however its executives had been nicely positioned to know the chance that the startup is seizing, which is mirrored in its cap desk. The corporate’s angel traders embody present Stripe COO Michael Coogan and former executives David Singleton (CTO) and Claire Hughes Johnson (COO). Even Stripe rival Adyen bought concerned, with CRCO Mariëtte Swart and CFO Ethan Tandowsky becoming a member of as angels.
Their endorsements additionally validate van Lanschot’s hunch that these firms gained’t compete with Duna, although they may. “It requires such fine-grained controls that change on a company-by-company foundation, that an Adyen or a Stripe isn’t going to spin out their enterprise onboarding as a separate product the place one other enterprise buyer can change the entire configurations,” he informed TechCrunch.
If it’s nonetheless well worth the effort for Duna, it’s as a result of the startup goes after the lengthy tail of enterprise purchasers that don’t have big sources to dedicate to enterprise onboarding. Nevertheless it’s additionally as a result of its imaginative and prescient doesn’t cease there: Duna’s ambition is to construct a community that enables firms to reuse their verified id info throughout a number of platforms.
“What we need to construct over time is a worldwide belief infrastructure the place we offer a digital passport for each enterprise. So you’ll be able to reuse your file from onboarding on [German spend management platform] Moss to onboard with Plaid, or you’ll be able to reuse it to open up a checking account,” van Lanschot mentioned.
This objective resonated with Alex Nichols, the final associate who led CapitalG’s funding into the Sequence A. “I’d say the widespread factor I search for in my investments are some form of community results, or extra formal scale benefit,” he informed TechCrunch. “I additionally like it when founders have an earned perception about an issue they might not learn about in any other case, and this can be a superb instance of that,” he added.
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Duna has opponents within the class often called KYB, or Know Your Enterprise. This contains distributors comparable to Jumio and Veriff. However for Nichols, what units Duna aside is its choice to generate its personal information, slightly than making an attempt to combination current information sources which can be usually missing. “It’s the uncommon alternative to rebuild one thing as foundational as a Visa and create a tremendous enterprise within the course of.”
Duna says it has already discovered a robust enterprise case in serving to prospects onboard company customers sooner and cheaper. This additionally explains why current traders are doubling down: Index Ventures, which led Duna’s €10.7 million seed spherical in Might 2025, participated within the Sequence A, as did Puzzle Ventures and Snowflake chairman Frank Slootman. However the startup’s greater ambition gained’t repay till Duna reaches vital scale. So the corporate is searching for shortcuts.
How so? Van Lanschot and the Duna workforce are figuring out small clusters of firms that already overlap with one another — what they name “patches of networks.” These embody manufacturing firms with shared prospects, funding corporations with overlapping LPs, or firms in the identical small nation. In these tight-knit teams, the flexibility to reuse verification turns into precious instantly, even earlier than Duna achieves full community results.
The international locations could also be small, however the alternative is large, van Lanschot mentioned. “Within the Netherlands alone — a tiny, tiny nation — the 4 largest banks make use of 14,000 individuals in compliance, and half of them are engaged on companies.” Duna gained’t totally substitute these jobs but, however AI automation can save prices and generate income even earlier than the community results kick in.
If Duna finally offers the rails for an id community, there is likely to be an excellent greater alternative in making the most of this place to allow one-click enterprise onboarding. This could make it akin to Amazon’s one-click checkout — or nearer to B2B, to Stripe Hyperlink. As soon as once more with Duna, the Stripe connection isn’t actually far.
