TransCrypts, a blockchain startup constructing instruments for folks to personal and share verified credentials, has raised a $15 million seed spherical led by Pantera Capital.
The spherical included Lightspeed Faction, Alpha Edison, Motley Idiot Ventures, and a mixture of returning buyers resembling Mark Cuban and Protocol Labs.
The funding follows a robust summer time for the San Francisco-based firm. In September, TransCrypts gained CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong, taking house $10,000 in tokens, a trophy, and ten teaching classes.
Founder and CEO Zain Zaidi mentioned that the win helped the group refine its imaginative and prescient for what he calls “self-sovereign identity”— a method for folks to manage their information straight, with out counting on employers, universities, or authorities businesses.
Bureaucratic mishap
Zaidi based the corporate after a bureaucratic mishap almost value him his spot in grad college when his transcripts had been misplaced. “If we can’t prove who we are or what we’ve done, we lose something essential,” he mentioned in an earlier interview with CoinDesk.
TransCrypts started by digitizing employment verification. Its platform lets customers acquire, encrypt, and share data straight with employers, background checkers, or others who want them. The system shops encrypted information off-chain, whereas the hashes dwell on-chain, so customers can show authenticity with out revealing private particulars.
Now, with HIPAA certification secured, TransCrypts plans to increase the mannequin to well being and training credentials. That might permit sufferers to hold verified medical histories between suppliers, or graduates to share diplomas and transcripts with potential employers—all with out the necessity for intermediaries.
Identity onchain
The transfer comes as fraud dangers are on the rise. Individuals misplaced $43 billion to id theft in 2023, and deepfake scams have surged greater than 1,800 p.c in a yr, in line with the corporate’s launch. Zaidi argues that decentralized id may assist counter these tendencies by permitting folks to manage what information is shared, when, and with whom.
TransCrypts claims to already serve 4 million customers and over 450 enterprise purchasers, together with companies in healthcare and staffing. The brand new capital will fund enlargement into these regulated sectors and strengthen instruments for verifying credentials in actual time.
For customers, that may imply sooner hiring or simplified onboarding for hospitals and faculties. For the broader market, it alerts rising confidence in blockchain-based id programs—as soon as a distinct segment concept, now seen as a doable safeguard in opposition to the deepfake period.
