Qui Identity Inc.

You belong to you. Qui is building tools to accelerate the adoption of user-controlled decentralized identity.

The story so far

Qui (French for ‘who’ and pronounced ‘key’) is reinventing how trusted interactions take place for each of us, every day. Based on decentralized identity standards, Qui is building the infrastructure that will allow individuals and companies to instantly exchange permissioned, verified identity information. The result: secure, trusted and frictionless access to products and services, with complete control for the individual.

Qui is led by Kirk Simpson and Peter Carrescia, both of whom have a long history with OMERS Ventures. Kirk co-founded and led Wave, whose first investment was led by OMERS Ventures. And Peter was the managing director at OMERS Ventures who led that investment. Wave was acquired in 2019 for $537 million.

Themes

Insuretech & Fintech

Founded

2022

OMERS First Investment

2022

Kirk Simpson

Qui is Kirk’s fourth technology startup. Previously, Kirk was co-founder and CEO of Wave, an internationally disruptive fintech. He grew the company to a team of 350 people, with revenues of more than $100M. Wave was acquired in 2019 for $537 million.

Kirk has been a mentor for Next 36, an advisor for the Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman, and is an active angel investor. In 2019 he was named Canada’s Most Admired CEO in the growth category by Waterstone. He believes in paying it forward, and loves to empower up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Peter Carrescia

In his extensive technology career, Peter has funded and helped scale high growth companies both as an operator and a venture capitalist. Most recently, he led strategy, business and corporate development at Wave, leading to its successful acquisition. As a VC, Peter was the founding managing director at OMERS Ventures, where he led the first investments including Wave.

He was also a general partner at VenGrowth Capital Partners. Peter is a past president of NEXT Canada, a national technology accelerator. Early in his career he held senior roles at IBM and Microsoft.