Blockchain Startups in Sydney: 25 to Watch Out for

Since Bitcoin’s debut in 2009, blockchain – the technology behind the currency – has been the source of immense amounts of both excitement and confusion. Blockchain companies began popping up while many of us were still trying to figure out precisely how the technology works. But with Australian Digital Commerce Association established to support blockchain innovation in Australia – it’s clear that digital currency isn’t going away any time soon, so we better get schooled on what it’s all about.

At its most basic, blockchain allows digital information to be distributed but not copied or changed. All of the info that is held on a blockchain exists as a shared database which is continuously reconciled. With no single storage location records are kept public, decentralised and verifiable, meaning ultimate transparency and zero need for centralised control from middlemen (like banks, in the case of cryptocurrency).

With so many opportunities to be explored through this technology, it is no surprise that the Australian startup ecosystem is beginning to see many blockchain companies and cryptocurrency exchanges popping up. After all, 18% of students in the US already own cryptocurrency – which is a sign of times to come in Australia.

Sydney is home to a thriving startup community, so where better to start our search for the best startups leveraging blockchain in Australia than the home of the harbour?

In no particular order, here are the best blockchain startups in Sydney to watch out for:

bron.tech

bron.tech specialises in decentralised infrastructure for data sharing and identity management. Their flagship product, the MyBron platform, aims to redefine the entire economics of data as we know it, by translating information into digital currency. They have done this by developing a data marketplace and digital identity platform to collect data directly from their users, giving users a higher level of control over how their personal data is shared with third parties.

bron.tech have just launched their newest product bronID, a portable digital identity verification platform where users from around the globe are able to identify individuals and entities. With a verified identity tool in your pocket, bronID gives the power to the individual with international KYC/AML compliance and AML risk management.

Founded in 2016 by Emma Poposka and Voidan Kardalev, and nurtured in the Muru-D Accelerator, bron.tech was bought by Ookami in December.

ScalaMed

Think of ScalaMed as a ‘digital prescription inbox’ secured by blockchain technology which patients can access from their smartphone and share with their treating doctors and pharmacists.

Founded in 2016 by Dr Tal Rapke and John James, the ScalaMed team is made up of a team of doctors, pharmacists, patients, carers, technologists and visionaries who believe in a better health future. Their solution offers users secure, complete, private and patient owned prescriptions.

Leveraging blockchain as a way to decentralise data in a secure and accessible way, ScalaMed believes that health data must be secure, patient owned and interoperable.

Veredictum

Veredictum is committed to solving film piracy and video theft, and unlike previous anti-piracy efforts, they are tackling this issue by attacking the drivers that cause piracy and theft in the first place, specifically:

• If users are unable to access content when they want it, how they want it, and at a reasonable price point.
• Because there aren’t enough deterrents in place.

Using a smart combination of blockchain and other technologies, they are developing a suite of tools which enable the protection of existing revenues by proactively protecting content. These tools offer increased revenues through new and improved distribution models, and the creation of new revenue streams.

ChatChing

ChatChing imagines a world where you can earn rewards for something you do every day – things like messaging your friends, playing games on your phone or shopping online. To achieve this goal they are building a part-decentralised social messaging platform using blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT), creating an innovative ecosystem for chat, content distribution, e-commerce, bricks and mortar commerce and games.

Founded in 2017 by James Lattouf, Joseph Nohra, and Tom Biordi, ChatChing rewards users in cryptocurrency via their proprietary Chat and Earn system. On the platform users can message and make video and audio calls for free to anywhere in the world.

ChatChing will be available for users to download in Q4 of 2018.

Fuel Games

Fuel Games is a provider of blockchain infrastructure for world-class video games. Earlier this year co-founders (and brothers) James and Robbie Ferguson released Etherbots, their first game utilising the Ethereum blockchain. The game allowed players ownership of the digital robots which could be used to battle other players. Within two weeks of the launch they sold over $1 million of in-game items.

More recently Fuel Games has announced the pre-sale launch of their online game Gods Unchained, the world’s first blockchain-based eSport. The launch comes after the duo successfully closed a $2.4 million seed round, led by investors Continue Capital, Nirvana Capital, Sora Ventures and Coinbase.

Meeco

Meeco offers data control for your digital life. They are building a personal data ecosystem of equals, giving people and organisations the tools to control, access and gain value from data.

Founded in 2012 by Katryna Dow, Meeco enables its users to manage their lives and important digital relationships – users can add, organise, edit and share their personal data through the platform which is compatible with all devices. Connect and chat with people through a private network, browse and bookmark your favourite web content without leaving behind a cookie trail, and record and monitor your goals and progress in a truly secure way!

TrustNote

TrustNote is a non-profit directed acyclic graph (DAG) based distributed ledger and development platform for the tokenised economy, which it aims to help build. The company’s concept is based on verifiable, declarative smart contracts and its own unique underlying technology. TrustNote recently released the iToken token platform and the TRC20 protocol specification, allowing users to create and publish tokens freely and simply without having to write complex smart contract codes.

Founded by Jeff Zhou in 2018, TrustNote is designed to challenge blockchains that haven’t yet embraced true decentralisation, which prohibits innovators from creating the change they want to see.

Independent Reserve

Independent Reserve is a cryptocurrency exchange platform on a mission to make digital currency technology more secure, robust and regulated. In short, to do things the right way.

On the Independent Reserve exchange, investors, traders and everyday people can buy and sell Bitcoin, Ether and Bitcoin Cash. Users are able to trade in AUD, NZD and USD.

Launched in 2013 by Adrian Przelozny, Independent Reserve has a strong and experienced executive team with a broad range of skills in corporate leadership, financial markets, software engineering and regulatory compliance.

Remitt

Remitt is a fintech startup disrupting how to transfer money using blockchain by removing the reliance on legacy banking systems. The company is developing an enterprise platform for banking that facilitates interoperability. It also provides visibility and assurance to regulators, to help foster further adoption of blockchain without compromising compliance.

Founded in 2015 by Gilbert Verdian and Sassoon Grigorian, Remitt’s new fintech products will sit on top of Quant Overledger – a platform designed to create next-generation multi-chain applications. Quant represents a new blockchain ISO standard. It’s a real-time platform which allows Remitt to build never before seen finance technology that promises to revolutionise banking.

DigitalX

DigitalX is a blockchain technology company with offices in Perth, Sydney and New York. It is the world’s leading publicly listed ICO advisory firm, providing blockchain consulting, media and education services to clients globally. DigitalX has also established a crypto-asset funds management division to achieve its goal of becoming the leading cryptocurrency investment bank.

Led by Leigh Travers, who is also the Vice Chairman of Australia’s blockchain industry body, DigitalX became one of the first blockchain companies on the ASX, listed in June 2014 and publicly trading as DigitalX Limited (ASX: DCC).

Incent Loyalty

Incent is a loyalty program rewarding consumers with a digital currency that can be shared, saved or exchanged and will never expire. They do this by harnessing the blockchain.

Because Incent is a digital asset reward, merchants can outsource infrastructure costs and liabilities to the blockchain, while the consumer is rewarded for their loyalty instantly with an incentive that has intrinsic value. Founded by Rob Wilson in 2016, Incent is the first universal merchant-backed loyalty platform. It  promises better loyalty through smarter rewards. To date it has raised over $1 million in seed funding.

Havven

Havven is a decentralised payment network designed to enable everyday cryptocurrency purchases. It uses a stablecoin to allow users to transfer value online without the need for a central authority. They fulfil the promise of Bitcoin by enabling censorship resistant and trustless payments between any two parties anywhere in the world.

Looking to solve one of the biggest problems in cryptocurrency – poor long-term stores of value due to inherent volatility – Havven offers a stable digital currency option using two interlinked tokens, the Havven token (which fluctuates) and the Nomin token (a stablecoin), to establish a far more reliable system.

Havven hit the headlines earlier this year when they raised $39 million in Australia’s largest ICO.

Enosi

Enosi was created to innovate and disrupt the energy market by encouraging the uptake of clean local energy. They are developing a set of open-source protocols that can provide significant savings in retail costs and enable households with solar to sell their excess generation within their communities. They aim to achieve this through Grid 2.0; to create a world of distributed energy, close to the point of consumption, where the low cost and flexibility of local resources are fully exploited.

The Enosi Platform will be an open-source, full-stack energy retailing system, available globally to enable decentralised energy exchange. Adopters will be both community organisations and commercial groups seeking to bundle energy with their core product or service.

CryptoFlip

CryptoFlip is a decentralised P2P wagering platform aiming to cut the house out of gambling with a simple, fair peer-to-peer game of chance that offers players true 50/50 odds.

Until now online gambling platforms, whilst wildly popular, have always given the house greater odds of winning than the players. The rise of decentralisation presents the perfect opportunity to change this and disrupt one of the largest industries in the world. CryptoFlip is soon launching a free tournament series where players battle against each other to claim $1 million worth of FLIP tokens.

myStake

myStake ensures all ownership of its client’s company is recorded, stored and made immutable with the Ethereum blockchain. Believing that business owners should be part of the value they create by sharing in the success of their enterprise through equity, the startup enables easy, transparent and immutable company governance, protecting the interests of stakeholders by leveraging blockchain technology.

With the myStake platform companies can implement and manage employee options or profit share schemes. It ensures transparent corporate governance by managing ASIC compliance, and making share register and distribution statements available in real time to stakeholders via the myStake wallet.

Kribia

Kribia is a rent to own platform improving access and affordability for renters to turn their good rental history into property ownership. Kribia hopes to combat the large deposits and significant debt involved in home buying by allowing customers to rent to own their ‘krib’. The tech uses the Ethereum blockchain.

The Kribia project is being powered by the team at Block8, a leading blockchain venture studio working to create new products and services using distributed systems. Kribia uses blockchain technology to confirm your rental history, and provides a shared equity model with investors to get customers into their home.

Five2one

Five2one is a software development consultancy company specialising in blockchain development, dApps, Ethereum smart contract protocol solutions, Hyperledger solutions and post-ICO blockchain protocol development. Their vision is to “modernise web architecture and build quality products.”

Five2one partner with both startups and some of Australia’s largest companies in insurance, energy, sports, social media, banking and law to identify opportunities and provide world-class solutions that people love to use. They’ve worked with several Fortune 500 companies as well as million dollar startups.

Mizko Media

Mizko Media is an agency solving critical problems in the digital space. They’re a UX firm helping to strategise and design products and experiences from the ground up. They have worked with the likes of Enome, as well as one of the most anticipated ICOs yet to launch in Australia.

Mizko Media helps businesses break down problems and objectives for companies looking to leverage blockchain technology. They break it down from a customer and business point of view and then create experiences which brings value to both stakeholders.

Additional work includes Devery.io where they helped craft the digital experience to bring trust, transparency and safety to delivering food to school kids in Tunisia; a project which was done in collaboration with the World Food Program and the U.N.

Hut34 Project

The Hut34 Project is building the protocol and network to enable bots, A.I., IoT devices, and users to connect, intelligently route and resolve their queries, and unlock the value in their data. By utilising a combination of emergent AI and blockchain technologies the project aims to build an ecosystem that is greater than the sum of its parts; and perhaps, one day, even a global superintelligence.

Data monetisation is enabled through protocol integration of an Ethereum ERC-20 Entropy token (ENTRP); which was distributed via a successful token sale in Q4, 2017.

More recently they have released a world first Google-powered Ethereum wallet. A ‘Wallet as a Service’ solution allowing corporates to deploy branded solutions using Google’s serverless architecture and an API to enable abstraction of the blockchain interface.

The Hut34 Project was founded in early 2017 by Tim McNamara, with Peter Godbolt joining as blockchain lead and co-founder in mid-2017.

Lakeba

Lakeba is one of few blockchain development firms leading commercialised blockchain development, with more than 80 dedicated developers across their organisation. They work on multiple live Blockchain developments across a range of industries through joint ventures and projects including Energy tokenisation, Supply Chain Management, Financial Services, Property, and Loyalty Programs.

Lakeba’s Blockchain Against Fraud (BAF) solution has just completed a sizeable pilot with one of Australia’s leading banks. BAF is a blockchain development that allows any bank to verify in real time that specific documents, like pay slips or tax returns, have been issued by the right source and with the numbers presented by the borrower.

Lakeba was one of the first organisations to launch a Future Hub consortium bringing together leading technology partners and industry to drive an innovation focus in Australia for the development of blockchain solutions and other emerging technologies.

Beam

Beam is a 21st-century global payments acceptance platform with built-in support for smart contracts. Beam was created to overturn the status quo in the retail value chain; where stakeholders engage with their customers in a direct, meaningful and effective manner.

The blockchain startup space is brimming with great ideas, many of which have the potential to be highly disruptive and innovative. Beam has been building out its Platform since 2011. In that time, it has developed relationships with stakeholders big and small from stores to enterprise retailers, brands, and distributors such as Costa Coffee, Tommy Hilfiger, Unilever, Coca-Cola and more.

Today Beam’s technical network reach exceeds 400,000 stores globally, with over 5,000 live stores across three continents. Not to mention, it has executed over 4.3 million smart contracts with a total throughput in excess of $250 million.

Beam has offices in Gothenburg, Dubai, and Sydney.