Former University of Oxford student Husayn Kassai has pledged to “make up for every penny” any donors pull from the Oriel College amid an ongoing statue debate.

Some university donors said they’d stop giving money to the 694-year-old college if it removed a controversial statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes, which campaigners say is a sign of racism.

Kassai, who founded identity verification start-up Onfido with three friends while studying economics and management at Oxford, wrote on Twitter that he would step in and cover any lost funding after Oriel College voted to take down the statue of the imperialist politician.

The entrepreneur, a former Merrill Lynch investment banker, described Rhodes as “the most savage Brit who ever lived” before going on to say that he was proud of Oriel and Oxford for voting to remove the statue of Rhodes.

“I’ll make up for every penny any racists donor pulls,” tweeted Kassai, who used to be the president of Oxford Entrepreneurs. “All racist status and symbols belong in museums, where we can safeguard our history, in all its gore and glory.”

Oriel did not respond when CNBC asked if any donors had withdrawn financial support following its decision. It’s also not clear how Kassai intends to discover the amount he will need to cover.

The college had reportedly been worried that donors would withdraw millions in funding if it removed the statue.

Former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib called for Oriel to return Rhodes’s endowment to his family, while Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan said he would stop donating to the college he once studied at.

“Rhodes’s generosity allowed thousands of young people to enjoy an education they could not otherwise have had,” Hannan wrote on Twitter. “The first black student won a scholarship 5 years after his death. Why would anyone give to an institution that treats its benefactors this way?”

Investors backed Kassai’s fast-growing company, which confirms internet users are who they say they are, with $100 million in May, bringing total funding in the eight-year-old company up to $182 million.

“The decision to pull the statue down has been taken in a democratic and orderly way,” Kassai told CNBC via email. “It seems outrageous for some donors to then want to block the democratic decision to remove a racist symbol of colonialism and slavery, using financial threats and pressure to do so.”

“This suggests that some donors are less interested in supporting students’ education, and more concerned with upholding symbols that no longer have a place in our diverse societies,” he added.