London, 10 November 2021 – cheqd, a technology company building a decentralised network to enable individuals and organisations to take full control of their data, has today announced the extension of its Seed investment round to include the participation of Tendermint Ventures, the venture arm of Tendermint, a leading software company in Cosmos, the Internet of Blockchains.
The company secured over £1.9 million in this funding round, backed by leading investors in addition to Tendermint Ventures such as: Outlier Ventures, Evernym, TitanBlock, 3GR, as well as private investors, following an initial investment in March this year, bringing the total raised to just over £2.4 million.
The announcement comes as the company prepares to launch its Mainnet network over the coming weeks.
cheqd’s purpose is to give individuals and businesses the ability to own and control their own data, while enabling the trusted organisations that create and manage these digital identities to create and operate in new business models. In practical terms, this could include passports, driving licences, bank statements and utility bills.
cheqd leverages self-sovereign identity (SSI) to give the control of their own data back to the user. Its solution enables individuals to have digital IDs (verifiable credentials) stored on their devices and use them to verify their identity or personal data, such as age, credit history or qualifications. Similar to a passport or a driving license, the digital IDs are issued and verified by a trusted authority to be accepted as proof of status by other organisations, negating the need to verify the individual’s details on a central database.
The technology behind cheqd, based on blockchain, also incorporates a payment system that enables users to charge a fee that covers the cost of the verification and management of the data.
Commenting on the news, CEO and co-founder Fraser Edwards said: “With the acceleration of digital technology, particularly over the past 18-24 months, there’s a growing need to develop robust digital identity solutions that will enable people not only to gain control over the management of their data, but streamline the processes for data verification.
“The global economy and the world at large is becoming digitised, and at cheqd we’re building a trusted data foundation to give people and businesses their privacy back and control their own data. I am delighted that our investors believe in our proposition and am really excited to have Tendermint Ventures supporting us at this exciting time!”
Sane Lebrun, Vice President of Growth at Tendermint, the core contributor to Cosmos, added: “We are excited to be part of the cheqd community in its early stages and to continue the journey with them in their expansion. Supporting such critical growth projects in the Cosmos ecosystem is a key focus for Tendermint Ventures, in line with our vision to empower developers to create a transparent and accountable world. As digital identities, security and data privacy are becoming increasingly relevant in the token economy, cheqd’s solution is making significant strides to solve these challenges in an effective and easy-to-use way. I look forward to seeing the company successfully thrive in the Cosmos ecosystem.”
ENDS
About cheqd
cheqd is a technology company building a decentralised network to enable individuals and organisations to take full control of their data. By providing payment rails, customisable commercial models and governance structures for authentic data, including Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), cheqd gives individuals and organisations privacy and full control of their data. Based on blockchain technology, cheqd is built upon a public permissionless network with a dedicated token for payment – $CHEQ.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Fraser Edwards and CTO Ankur Banerjee, cheqd is a driver for innovation backed by Outlier Ventures, Evernym, TitanBlock, 3GR, Cosmos’ Tendermint Ventures and private investors, receiving a total raise of just over £2.4 million in its Seed investment round.
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