Blockchain identity company Netko raises $3.5 million in seed funding

Most of the energy in the Bitcoin industry has been focused on building infrastructure, while creating a more user-friendly environment for new users has arguably never gained much traction.

However, that hasn’t stopped startups from moving towards that goal. Towards that end, digital identity startup Netki announced that it has closed a $3.5 million seed round led by O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV).

Other investors include Donuts, Colle Capital, Husseini Group, Digital Currency Group, Bitfinex, Plug and Play, Base Ventures, and Tom Turney.

Justin Newton, Netki’s chief executive, said in an interview that the funding will help the company, founded in 2014, continue to grow.

He told reporters: "According to the plan, we will invest the money in technology development and use it to expand the team to support customer development needs."

For OATV Ventures, this also marks its first investment in the blockchain field.

Focus on identifying projects

Netki was co-founded by Justin and Dawn Newton, both of whom came from early Internet companies. (Justin Newton has provided technical support for AboveNet, NetZero/AOL, Demand Media and Blackline, while Dawn Newton was responsible for assistance at NetZero/AOL, and he also worked at Microcom and InterAccess.)

So far, Netki has mainly focused on identification projects. Its first product, Wallet Name Service, was launched in early 2015. It attempts to create a simpler wallet address. It is reported that companies that have integrated this wallet naming service include Purse, BitSo, Bitt and BlockCypher.

The company also announced its latest product, an upcoming digital identity service, at the Consensus 2016 conference organized by CoinDesk.

The company expects that this digital identity product will be officially released by the end of 2016.