Besides registering its mark as a tokenized data services provider, OXIO blockchain also seeks to help take the adoption of the service mainstream.
New York-based blockchain startup OXIO has announced that it has secured a $12 million Series A funding round led by Atlantico Capital, Monashees as well as Multicoin Capital and Fintech Collective. According to a Coindesk report, this brings the total amount of funds raised by OXIO to about $20 million from the end of 2019 to date.
OXIO is a tech startup renowned for building one of the platforms that helps reinvent the asset-light carrier model (carrier-as-a-service) to enable brands to primarily offer wireless connectivity to their users and customers. Now, OXIO is aiming to enhance this business offering with blockchain technology by helping big business entities to offer telecommunication related services by turning mobile data into a tradeable digital asset using tokens on blockchains.
As noted by OXIO, the tokenization of mobile data will find wide adoption in countries with very expensive data costs like Mexico. OXIO provides an API that allows enterprises to ride on the shoulders of the best telecom service provider. The API also allows for some differentiation in the offering of the connecting business so that the model will not appear as a copycat of the primary telecom service provider.
“It’s less about becoming a telco and just providing exactly what Verizon and others have been doing, and more about brands adding their own spin while getting closer to their customers,” said Nicolas Girard, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of OXIO. “So if a brand becomes a mobile operator, it can differentiate and offer plans that tie into what it does as a business, whether it’s e-commerce, or retail, or the gig economy.”
The Telecom-as-a-Service business model on offer by OXIO is not a new concept in the telecom space. According to Coindesk, United KIngdom’s Mobile Network Virtual Operator, as well as Hong Kong-based DENT Wireless, have pioneered the tokenization of Mobile Data services.
OXIO Blockchain to Drive Mainstream Adoption of Tokenized Data Services
Besides registering its mark as a tokenized data services provider, OXIO blockchain also seeks to help take the adoption of the service mainstream.
“The big picture is we are trying to build the first global network as a resource,” said Girard. “So we are saying wireless can be a tradeable asset and in order to get mainstream global adoption of that network, there can be a token that represents that fungible wireless data.”
To drive this mainstream adoption, OXIO Blockchain has been running trials on scalable blockchain networks including the Stellar blockchain, and more recently on Solana and Near Protocol respectively. OXIO aims to plug into the $2.5 Trillion mobile data network taking advantage of blockchain technology.
“If you’re creating new business models to subsidise connectivity, basically that means the user can pay with money or pay with data. And that’s also where the blockchain comes into play,” said Girard.
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