Keen on tech, Zheng Wei left his profession as a chartered accountant to show himself the best way to code. However it was his expertise as an accountant that led to his curiosity within the blockchain and the way it may be used to confirm paperwork. “What intrigued me was the potential of the know-how to permit for real-time authentication,” Wei advised TechCrunch. “That was mind-blowing as a result of basically, accountants are there to match sure transactions and ensure the whole lot tallies up towards each other. After I realized that know-how can utterly displace that exercise, it intrigued me.”
Based by Wei in 2019 to securely confirm paperwork, Singapore-based Accredify introduced immediately that it has raised $7 million in Sequence A funding co-led by iGlobe Companions and SIG Enterprise Capital with participation from returning buyers Pavilion Capital and Qualqro. To date, it has processed 12 million verifications on 2 million issued paperwork and served 600 customers.
Accredify started by working with instructional organizations to forestall using faux levels and certificates. Then it started increasing into different use circumstances, together with company registries and healthcare.
For instance, throughout the peak of the pandemic, Accredify labored with the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Well being to create a system that verified COVID-19 information so staff might journey. It has additionally collaborated with Singapore’s Accounting and Company Regulatory to remodel their information infrastructure. Because of this now each time an organization is created, it obtained a verifiable enterprise profile that may be traced again to the blockchain.
“I feel with the ability to create this type of business traction and adoption is one thing that we’ve executed rather well,” mentioned Wei.
Accredify onboards purchasers by first creating an id for them on the blockchain (it primarily makes use of Ethereum). It creates a pockets, or doc retailer, which is a brilliant pockets on the Ethereum community. It manages the personal and public key for the consumer. Then it attracts information by dashboards or API integrations.
Different firms in the identical area embrace Unifier, which Accredify partnered with throughout the pandemic—Accredify created paperwork whereas Unifier learn paperwork for his or her purchasers. U.S. startups like Trinsic work with verifiable id credentials, like New Zealand firms like MATTR are working with the nation’s authorities to create digital id and verifiable information.
Wei mentioned the important thing distinction between Accredify and different gamers “is that a lot of the use circumstances you see out there cease on the pilot, proof of idea state of affairs. Relating to true business adoption, in addition to scalability, I don’t suppose numerous firms have achieved what we’ve executed, together with creating a complete system that has enabled the COVID-19 administration inside Singapore to be so seamless.”
Accredify has workplace in Singapore and Australia, and it plans to double down on its presence within the latter nation by hiring extra folks. Wei says it’s also exploring enlargement into Japan by doing pilot packages with authorities entities.