Yesterday, enterprise blockchain firm BlockApps announced its successful Series A funding round. Investors in the startup include Fitz Gate Ventures, Elliptic Curve Ventures, Bloccelerate, Fenbushi Capital, Galaxy Digital Ventures, and ConsenSys, an initial incubator of BlockApps. It will use the funding to expand its industry presence.
BlockApps claims its Ethereum-based STRATO offering was the first blockchain as a service (BaaS) platform. Since its launch on Microsoft Azure in 2015, it is in use by hundreds of partners including Fortune 500 companies. Indeed, BlockApps boasts relationships with Bayer, ticketmaster, John Hancock, and United Airlines.
The platform is one of the few BaaS solutions available on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. BlockApps hopes to reach more and diverse sectors with STRATO and yesterday’s funding, such as healthcare, energy, agribusiness, and travel. For instance, ALTEN Calsoft recently used STRATO to launch its clinical trial blockchain.
BlockApps’ CEO, Kieren James Lubin, said: “We are extremely excited to be working with this exceptional group of investors. We have a healthy mix of traditional venture capital players along with some of the best blockchain focused firms participating.”
“Leveraging their expertise will help us achieve our vision for secure, scalable blockchain business networks and accelerate our mission of restoring trust, reliability and efficiency to online transactions,” he continued.
Kieren Lubin, son of ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin, is also the CTO and co-founder of Blockskye, which uses blockchain in the aviation industry. Earlier this year, it received funding from the Airlines Reporting Corp (ARC).
In August, BlockApps partnered with Tech Mahindra to increase STRATO adoption. Tech Mahindra has a deal with Samsung to offer its Nexledger blockchain platform.
