The European Commission (EC)’s NGI TrustChain initiative has awarded an additional €1.8M in grant funding to leading European startups to combat online misinformation and false identity in online spaces with blockchain-based technologies. The EC project is now announcing the 15 latest startup recipients of ‘democracy grants’ who will each receive up to €117,000 in grant funding. The winning recipients come from ten European countries and were chosen in a highly competitive selection process from 162 interested startups.

This is the 3rd cohort of the NGI TrustChain Project to tackle these critical issues, which have only increased in importance due to spillover of political, social and military conflicts into the online sphere. To date, NGI TrustChain has provided more than €4.6M in funding to 43 companies. 

Yuting Jiang, CEO of grant recipient ZKorum, said, “We’re working with TrustChain to depolarize the online social landscape so democracy has breathing room for inclusive discussion. Trustchain will help with adoption of our polling and discussion tools, as well as our user and privacy friendly identity verification platform.” 

Dr. Muttukrishnan Rajarajan, Professor and Director of the Institute of Cyber Security at City, University of London: “Misinformation, hate speech and online harm in democracy is a pressing issue – nearly half of the world’s population are voting in national elections this year. Trustchain startups are working to use blockchain, identity, privacy and interoperable decentralised technologies so that the internet ecosystem can give the public confidence in online activities.”

Sean Kane, co-founder and Chair of the F6S startup network, said, “It’s not surprising that only 6 in 10 of us trust online information – fake and deceptive information is everywhere. These 15 latest grants will help top new European blockchain and identity startups empower trusted discussion in European digital public spaces.” 

The latest Trustchain startup grant recipients include: