Factom, the Austin-based startup using blockchain for data security, has completed its $8 million Series A funding round, the company announced Tuesday.
The company had previously raised $5.3 million of the round, including investment from Tim Draper (an early investor in Skype and Hotmail), Stewart Title, Overstock and others. The latest $2.7 million portion of the round is supplied by Peeli Ventures, Harvest Equity and several Austin investors. That adds to the $1.9 million Factom raised in 2015.
Factom was co-founded in 2014 by Paul Snow and David Johnston, and it was pitched as a "blockchain as a service" company that uses blockchain, the underlying technology behind bitcoin, to create security layers into existing technology. The company's first customer was the Department of Homeland Security, adding blockchain technology to security and border protection sensors and devices.
Now, Factom is launching a new product called Factom Harmony that's aimed at the mortgage industry. It uses blockchain technology to ensure that mortgage companies and their clients have complied with regulations, documents are securely preserved and everything is easily accessible in the event of an audit.
"The Factom Harmony launch was such a resounding success that we extended the Series A round for additional investors,” Peter Kirby, co-founder and CEO of Factom, said in a news release. “We’re very appreciative of our early investors who doubled-down on their participation and the new investors who are helping us strategically extend our reach. Many highly intelligent people worked very hard to help us get to this point and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
