The $2 million funding that Cambridge Blockchain LLC closed from leading technology investors Partech Ventures and Digital Currency Group is a validation of its position in the blockchain-based digital identity space particularly in a promising market like Europe, according to its CEO Matthew Commons.
Not just cash
Stating in an email to Cointelegraph on the fund which will be used to accelerate deployments of his company’s digital identity enterprise software for financial institutions, Matthew Commons says:
“The importance of the fundraising goes well beyond simply "getting cash in the bank." DCG and Partech are very experienced investors, and their investment is an important validation of Cambridge Blockchain's leading position in the blockchain-based digital identity space.”
He adds: “Furthermore, both investors have strategic relationships with major global financial institutions who could be Cambridge Blockchain's customers or partners. You can see a list of DCG's investors here. Partech is based in Paris and has very strong strategic relationships with European financial institutions.”
Incentive for banks
He explains that Europe is a particularly promising market for his company given the pending implementation of the European General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") in May of 2018 which will provide an increasing incentive for banks to adopt privacy-enhancing technologies.
According to international law firm, Allen & Overy, the EU data protection framework takes the form of a regulation. It catches data controllers and processors outside the EU whose processing activities relate to the offering of goods or services (even if for free) to, or monitoring the behaviour (within the EU) of, EU data subjects.
As penalties for data privacy violations can be levied up to 4% of worldwide revenue, making “privacy by design” a critical factor in information architectures, Commons says Cambridge Blockchain solves the consent problem by directly recording in the PDS a customer’s consent to a party’s request to share data.
He adds:
“The recorded consent has an accompanying attestation in the blockchain that includes cryptographic hashes of the shared data. This successfully establishes an immutable record of the consent along with privacy-protecting proofs of what data was shared. The same solution can be applied to a customer’s “request-to-forget” made to a party, and that party’s acknowledgment, providing a powerful compliance mechanism.”
The funding received is also going to be used to expand the technical team, reach new financial institution customers, and continue to invest in its patent portfolio.
Our target is to successfully finish three comprehensive pilot projects at major global financial institutions in 2017 and to complete our production release before the end of the year. We also have a major focus on bank-grade enterprise security standards for all aspects of our deployments, Commons says.