coindesk.com
Quadrata, a Web3 identity passport network, has raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round led by Dragonfly Capital. The funding will help expand the solution to additional blockchains and grow the team, Quadrata co-founder and CEO Fabrice Cheng told CoinDesk.
Lead investor crypto investment firm Dragonfly had around $3 billion in assets under management as of April when it raised $650 million for its third fund. Other investors in the round included Franklin Templeton, Abra, GSR Ventures, Orange DAO, Fellows Fund, GreatPoint Ventures, August Capital and a number of angel investors.
The Quadrata Passport syncs secure identity, compliance and reputation-based data across multiple blockchains. The passport offers users a unique decentralized identity (DID) and provides decentralized applications with compliance infrastructure, including Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. Quadrata also partnered with credit score giant TransUnion to create a native on-chain reputation score.
“Today, people interacting with cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) don’t need to be identified,” explained Cheng. “You don’t have multiple accounts. You don’t have to create an email. There’s no need for any information vetting before you interact with anything on-chain. We’re trying to bring the digital identity of the future.”
A potential use case is DeFi lending, Quadrata co-founder Lisa Fridman told CoinDesk. DeFi loans are overcollateralized because the borrower can't leverage their credit reputation. Quadrata's identity and credit verification could open the door to undercollateralized or even unsecured loans.
The near-term Quadrata roadmap includes the launch of the passport product, expansion to more blockchains, decentralization of the network and the addition of more types of identifiers such as accredited investor status, said Cheng.
“In the current Web3 ecosystem, identity is the holy grail problem that remains unsolved," said Dragonfly Capital managing partner Haseeb Qureshi in the press release. “As developers continue bringing utility to Web3, Quadrata’s already robust use cases will play an instrumental role in making participating in the technological revolution safer and easier.”
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