Pantera Backs TransCrypts with $15M Seed Round to Expand Blockchain Identity Platform

TransCrypts, a blockchain startup constructing instruments for individuals 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 Fool Ventures, and a mixture of returning buyers corresponding to Mark Cuban and Protocol Labs.

The funding follows a robust summer season for the San Francisco-based firm. In September, TransCrypts gained CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong, taking dwelling $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 individuals to management their knowledge immediately, with out counting on employers, universities, or authorities businesses.

Bureaucratic mishap

Zaidi based the corporate after a bureaucratic mishap practically value him his spot in grad college when his transcripts have 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 gather, encrypt, and share information immediately with employers, background checkers, or others who want them. The system shops encrypted knowledge off-chain, whereas the hashes reside on-chain, so customers can show authenticity with out revealing private particulars.

Now, with HIPAA certification secured, TransCrypts plans to prolong the mannequin to well being and schooling credentials. That may enable sufferers to carry 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. Americans misplaced $43 billion to identification theft in 2023, and deepfake scams have surged greater than 1,800 % in a 12 months, in accordance to the corporate’s launch. Zaidi argues that decentralized identification may assist counter these traits by permitting individuals to management what knowledge is shared, when, and with whom.

TransCrypts claims to already serve 4 million customers and over 450 enterprise shoppers, together with corporations in healthcare and staffing. The new capital will fund growth into these regulated sectors and strengthen instruments for verifying credentials in actual time.

For customers, that may imply quicker hiring or simplified onboarding for hospitals and colleges. For the broader market, it alerts rising confidence in blockchain-based identification programs—as soon as a distinct segment thought, now seen as a attainable safeguard in opposition to the deepfake period.