Estonia's Unicorn Veriff: CEO Kaarel Kotkas appeared on CNN live with two risks

Veriff founder and CEO Kaarel Kotkas appeared on CNN's prestigious business show "Quest Means Business". Live on air, he demonstrated both a product demo and attempted to guess the age of host Richard Quest.

Veriff founder and CEO Kaarel Kotkas made a notable international move by appearing on CNN's prestigious business show "Quest Means Business" live on air. The Estonian unicorn's leader demonstrated courage by taking on two major risks at once.

First, Kotkas decided to perform a real-time demonstration of Veriff's product live on air — a step that is a major challenge even for experienced entrepreneurs, as technical glitches can happen at any moment. Second, he decided to guess the age of the legendary show host Richard Quest, which is always a high social risk venture.

Veriff is an identity verification platform founded in Estonia, which has become one of Estonia's best-known technology companies globally. The company has achieved unicorn status — which means its valuation exceeds one billion dollars. Appearing on CNN's show gives Veriff, and more broadly Estonia's technology sector, significant international visibility.

As a relatively small nation, Estonia has managed to grow several world-class technology companies, including Wise, Bolt, and Pipedrive. The appearance of Veriff's leadership on one of the world's most-watched news networks confirms Estonia's position as a global technology powerhouse.