Singapore startup Bluzelle raises US$19.5M in ICO to strengthen its blockchain tech
Investors include VCs such as Kenetic Capital, Hashed, Kryptonite 1 and 8 Decimal Capital
Bluzelle -Neeraj Murarka (CTO) and Pavel Bains (CEO)
About half a year after it raised a US$1.5 million Series A round, Singapore-based blockchain startup Bluzelle has scooped a whopping US$19.5 million in funding — this time, in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO).
ICOs are a means for companies to raise money for their cryptocurrency venture. These companies issue their own cryptocoins to backers, who purchase them either via fiat currency or other cryptocoins such as ether or bitcoin. If the venture is successful, the companies’ cryptocoins go up in value.
Bluzelle generated 500 million tokens; out of these, 165 million tokens, or 33 per cent, were put up for sale. Investors included VCs Kenetic Capital, Hashed, Kryptonite 1 and 8 Decimal Capital.
By day three of the sale, around 163 million tokens were sold. The remaining were bought up in under 5 seconds, stated an official press release.
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“We have been into this technology for years and the CEOs and CTOs we work with are just as enthusiastic as us about the product, technology and the future. With this funding, we will now be able to bring our decentralized database to everyone,” said Bluzelle CEO Pavel Bains.
Founded in 2014, Bluzelle started off by providing payments systems to financial institutions such as AIA, Maybank and Temenos. Today it has added other prominent clients, including OCBC and HSBC
In 2016, Bluzele started developing its decentralised database service. By using blockchain technology, data stored in these databases becomes immutable: because they are stored inside encrypted blocks on the chain, which are unalterable.
One problem of the current iteration of blockchain tech is that queries can be slow to process — this makes scaling apps and services on the blockchain difficult. Bluzelle says its decentralised data storage and management uses tech such as Swarm (distributed content and storage service) to solve this problem — allowing queries to be executed quickly.
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Image Credit: Bluzelle
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