By
Bhushan Akolkar
June 30th, 2023
The award winning startup that uses biometrics and blockchain tech for upgrading elections attracted huge investment funds and influential business angels.
Voatz, an innovative startup that claims to change the process of elections, has recently increased its capital by over $2.2 million. The seed funding round was led by Medici Ventures and attracted such investors as Urban Innovation Fund and Oakhouse Partners and angel investors from Walnut Ventures.
The seed round became a great success for Voatz, Boston-based company. This startup is aimed at simplifying identity verification and making voting process more secure. The technological implementation of Voatz is based on blockchain technology and biotech; it comes in form of a mobile app.
Voatz has already been used in several universities, local political groups and non-commercial organizations attracting more than 70 thousand users – and has proved to be a promising tool. Right now it is in the process of applying the technology for town meeting voting in Massachusetts. The app can be accessed by pre-applying on the official site of the project.
The capital raised in the seed funding round is to be spent on the further development of the platform, creation of business development team and increasing the use of Voatz in the United States. Voatz Co-Founder & CEO Nimit Sawhney expressed his feelings on the round: “We are delighted and grateful for the support we have received from our investors to help grow our team and accelerate the deployment of our cutting edge voting and citizen engagement platform.”
The company that led the seed funding round was Medici Ventures. This company is a subsidiary of Overstock.com, a tech-driven online retailer founded in 1999. The sphere of interests of Medici Ventures is crypto-industries, namely, Capital Markets, Money&Banking, Identity, Land, Voting and Underlying Tech.
The company had been actively working in 2017: it made lead investments to Spera and SettleMint. It also invested into such companies as Symbionit, Ripio, Factom, etc.
Medici Ventures President Jonathan Johnson seems to be satisfied with the recent work with the Boston-based company: “Voatz is a great addition to the Medici Ventures portfolio. The Voatz team has developed a leading solution to usher in an era of greater efficiency and transparency in voting.”
He continued: “Democracy will benefit greatly from critical improvements blockchain technology can bring to voting systems. For example, providing secure, immutable record keeping will bring greater confidence in accurate results, and ease of use will lower the barrier to entry for citizens to participate in elections. We look forward to partnering with the Voatz team to improve this critical function of society.”
The other investors also expect Voatz to meet high expectations. Julie Lein, Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, said: “We’re excited to support Voatz in its bold mission to dramatically increase voting access and security. Voatz tackles two of the core challenges in voting – low participation in local elections and the need for better citizen engagement. Its mobile-first solution is poised to be a category leader, democratizing voting across government, corporate, academic, and union elections.”
Andrew Maguire, Investor at Oakhouse Partners, expressly agrees with his colleagues: “We are deeply impressed with the entire Voatz team. Their innovative approach to combining biometrics and blockchain technology achieves a dramatic improvement in voting infrastructure security. The Voatz platform increases voter confidence and participation, solving two critical objectives of voting system organizers around the world”.
Some famous individual investors also decided to support the Voatz. Walt Winshall, Michael Dornbrook, Ty Danco, Tom Williams, Joe Caruso contributed to the well-being of the new project, as well as Walnut Ventures angels group.
Voatz had already raised about $600,000 during pre-seed funding round. The company is not planning to use ICO for funding.
