Palm-scanning Humanity Protocol Raises $30M in Seed Round

Humanity Protocol has announced a $30 million seed round, spearheaded by Kingsway Capital, with significant investments from Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, Hashed, Shima Capital, and other prominent investors. The funding aims to accelerate hiring and product development as the company gears up for a public testnet launch later this year.

With the latest funding round, Humanity Protocol’s private valuation has reached $1 billion. The project is known for its pioneering use of the Proof of Humanity (PoH) consensus mechanism on its zkEVM blockchain, which aims to establish a Self-Sovereign Identity system through a minimally invasive palm scanning app.

The PoH consensus mechanism provides sybil resistance at both network and application levels, ensuring that each user’s identity is unique within the decentralized system. It’s an approach that Humanity Protocol argues will help maintain the integrity of both online and offline environments by reducing the risk of identity fraud and sybil attacks, thus fostering trust and credibility.

The startup envisions creating the world’s largest decentralized open identity graph, allowing users to perform various transactions—such as proving ownership of assets or verifying educational history—without revealing personal information to third parties.

Since its emergence from stealth mode, Humanity Protocol has attracted considerable public interest, with over half a million waitlist sign-ups in just one month. The protocol’s zkEVM Layer 2 blockchain is designed to ensure efficiency and interoperability as the user base expands.

It’s a platform that is attracting the attention of investors looking for new solutions to the problems of identity fraud and deepfakes.

“Supporting innovative ventures that champion the human identity online isn’t merely an investment in technology, but a commitment to breaking down the barriers blocking financial and broader digital inclusion in particular for the world’s bottom billions,” explained Kingsway Capital Founder Manuel Stotz.

Humanity Protocol’s $30 million funding round puts the startup into even more direct competition with established digital identity projects like Worldcoin. Both companies aim to revolutionize digital identity through blockchain technology, but their approaches and challenges differ significantly. Worldcoin, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has similarly ambitious goals, seeking to establish a global digital identity and financial network through its iris-based World ID system.

Despite its innovative approach, Worldcoin has been embroiled in regulatory challenges due to privacy issues related to biometric data collection. Countries like Spain, Argentina, and Malaysia have raised concerns, prompting Worldcoin to implement privacy-focused measures like the “Personal Custody” system, which allows users to delete their biometric data.

Source: Medium

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(Originally published on Mobile ID World)