Norbloc, the RegTech blockchain platform focused on know-your-customer (KYC) solutions raised $1.6 million in a new seed funding round led by the Greek Marathon Venture Capital fund, the company announced. Reportedly, the Digital Currency Group, Inbox Capital, Back in Black, and the founding team of classifieds website Avito participated in the round as well.
CEO and co-founder at Norbloc, Astyanax Kanakakis said that the company will use the funding to further expand their team and their customer base.
“We are very proud to have the support of top investors and we consider this support to be indicative of the value of our product. We are going to use the funding to develop our customer base and expand our team”, Kanakakis said.
Panos Papadopoulos, the partner of Marathon VC, the fund that leads the round, noted that their company was immediately intrigued with the sophistication of the Norbloc solution, hence their decision to invest in this startup.
“Anyone who has opened a bank account can easily recognize the usefulness of the Norbloc platform. The product was launched by a Greek founder who exploits blockchain technology to solve a major global problem while providing consumers with full control over strong cryptography by applying the latest privacy guidelines”, Papadopoulos said.
According to the Norbloc’s data, the financial institution that is using their platform can achieve savings exceeding 30% on their current KYC compliance budget, while other obliged entities can cut compliance costs by up to 50%. Just as an example of the costs, only in Sweden banks spend over $ 300 million a year to identify their customer base.
Founded in 2016 in Sweden and with Development Hub in Greece, Norbloc is a Swedish-Greek premier blockchain platform and applications provider in Europe, focusing on regulatory solutions for financial services and sectors with sensitive personal data. Their special focus is the KYC platform that is based on a blockchain framework, allowing removal of duplication of efforts among financial institutions and other obliged entities. Thus the startup helps the financial institution to enlarge their transparency, an issue that recently became a great challenge for the financial sector.
Even though recently launched on the market, Norbloc is already a member of the Hyperledger, the Linux Foundation-backed consortium building blockchains for enterprises. The company’s team has collected more than 30 years of experience in banking and consulting and equally lengthy experience in blockchain software and hardware development. Their CEO Kanakakis, brings more than 10 years’ experience from the finance and consulting sector.
Marathon Venture Capital, is a Greek fund with a mission to help Greek founders build world-class technology companies that are going to be profoundly successful and change the landscape of the Greek ecosystem.