Gateway, a Web3 credential protocol, raised $4.2 million in a seed round led by crypto-focused venture capital firm Reciprocal Ventures.
About Funding
The seed round included participation from companies such as 6th Man Ventures and Spartan Group. Angel investors included Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal and Ryan Selkis of Messari. The investment round took place last year, but due to the crypto crashes last year, the company chose to make the announcement now.
The investment will be used to develop the company’s credential protocol and expand its current team of 10 people.
About Credential
Credentials are verification tools that prove that a person has a certain qualification or competence. In the real world, credentials are documents physically issued by governments or institutions, such as certificates, academic diplomas, qualification certificates, etc. In the Web3 world, credentials are stored on the blockchain and are usually issued as NFTs. Gateway has issued more than 500,000 credentials since its inception, of which 300,000 are NFTs. Ayyan Rahman said:
“Credential minting as an NFT is in the user’s control to help ensure sovereignty and data privacy. The user, after earning a credential, can choose to mint it as an NFT, which we call a verifiable presentation. This is simply a token for greater social consumption and interoperability with applications.”
About Gateway
Gateway was founded in 2021 by Ayyan Rahman, Sanket Jain, Harisson Santos, and Nuno Carvalho to centralize the regulation of credentials. The company stores all credentials on Arweave, a blockchain-based data storage protocol.
With Gateway’s dApp, users’ credentials are private but can be verified by anyone. The protocol works similarly to zk-proofs. In addition, the company offers SDKs and APIs that can customize according to customer demands.
Web2 Plans
Gateway currently only serves Web3 companies. However, the company’s future goals include providing credential services to Web2-oriented companies as well. Craig Burel, a partner at Reciprocal Ventures, said:
“It’s been incredible to see the myriad of use cases forming around Gateway, with companies leveraging the technology for everything from brand development and loyalty programs to code audit certifications. All of these applications are underpinned by the Gateway protocol, which we believe will define a new technical standard for digital credentials.”
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