According to co-founder Elo Mukoro, the firm had struggled to raise additional funding after it got a $40,000 seed round from Microtraction.
“We were really focused on the product, and we built this cool first version of Cr3dentials. But the problem was that there was really no one to use it, and it’s like, ‘If there’s no one to use it, then we can’t give you any more money,” he told Mariblock.
With the new capital raise, Mukoro says the firm aims to fix a distribution gap to help distribute the firm’s product which have been ready but not in use. At the momenet, Cr3dentials has pilot programs with five different companies lined up.
Kaleo Venture’s seed will help solidify the pilot programs and generating revenue for Cr3dentials hence helping it raise more funding for expansion.
“Once we actually get these pilots started,” he said, “which is going to be happening very soon and we now have income or actual real revenue, then it’ll be even easier, and we can start going for even bigger checks.”
Cr3dentials allows third-party employers and financial institutions to verify the income information of applicants without compromising the individual’s privacy.
The protocol uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to verify that a person’s income information is authentic, without revealing the actual details. The platform then captures this information and shares it with the third party, ensuring that the user’s private data are not compromised.
Cr3dentials help individuals share verified proof of their revenue on digital platforms with various sources securely with no need of sharing their login data.
Instead, the user grants access to Cr3dentials, which secures their login details with ZKP technology and, in turn, shares their income information with any third party the user grants access to.
Firms can integrate Cr3dentials’ application program interfaces (APIs) to streamline the collection and authentication of information from several users.