A data company that produced a review of blockchain technology for the Scottish Government has secured £1.3m in a funding round with investors.
SICCAR, formerly known as Wallet Services, is being backed by Par Equity to strengthen its product development and customer teams as the company builds on its success in two industry sectors.
The Edinburgh-based firm aims to empower organisations to remove friction from digital interactions with partners customers and citizens. The SICCAR platform addresses issues of data protection, consent, and accountability, using distributed ledger technology.
In high value manufacturing the SICCAR platform has enabled secure sharing of data along complex supply chains (known as industry 4.0). In the oil and gas industry, it allows manufacturing records to be generated and assured collaboratively, enabling efficient, high integrity operations and creating cost savings.
The SICCAR platform has also been tested across Scottish Public Sector around student support, disability entitlement, and health and social care interaction. The technology has been used to reduce the burden of evidence for citizens in accessing public services and entitlements – by removing the need to repeatedly provide personal details to multiple government agencies. It also enables support to be targeted proactively to benefit the most disadvantaged in society.
SICCAR was founded in 2016 and benefitted from the Scottish Government CivTech® accelerator, which has a focus on solving the challenges of public sector organisations through innovative SMEs. The company has also worked with the National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland and support from The Oil and Gas Technology Centre to refine its products for the manufacturing industry.
With the investment the company will expand their executive team to include marketing expertise, customer engagement capability and product and technical resource as it refines the SICCAR platform.
Aidan MacMillan, Investment Manager at Par Equity said: “We were attracted to SICCAR because of their unique approach, which enables the people who really understand the problem, the customers, to use distributed ledger tech as a tool to solve real pain points. The Scottish Public Sector alone has over 100 agencies that need to connect in a way that everyone can trust. Covid-19 has accelerated the move towards online eServices around the world and SICCAR has the solution they need.”
Peter Ferry, founder of SICCAR said: “In funding the next stage of our growth we’ve found a partner with a depth of experience and connections across the industries we’re working in. We’ve access to Par Equity’s network and direct recent industry and technology knowledge. Their support will help ensure that we are able to build on our existing momentum to rapidly grow a successful business.”
Colin Cook, Director, Digital Directorate Scottish Government Director of Scottish Government said: “Wallet Services were one of the first start-ups through Scottish Government’s CivTech accelerator which looks to provide opportunities to companies in the GovTech sector via a range of innovative challenges. Wallet Services worked with CivTech to prepare the “Distributed Ledger Technologies in Public Services” report and I look forward to this new investment giving them the opportunity of competing on an international level.”
