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.”

F6S is a leading community for blockchain founders and a strong proponent for healthy online spaces. The global growth network is a core member of the consortium working to make NGI Trustchain a success.

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 digital public spaces.”

The latest Trustchain grant recipients include:

• FITCHAIN: Empowering Personal Health Data Sovereignty through Blockchain-Enabled Monetization.
• SecureOpinion: Fully decentralised, secure, privacy-preserving openly accessible opinion-sharing platform.
• SPARK-IT: Secure, open-source platform for growing ideas by connecting innovators with experts, leveraging blockchain technology to foster trust and transparency.
• TrustCity: The TrustCity (TC) project will establish a secure, transparent and verified model for engaging people in smart cities and communities where users will be able to actively participate in shaping the city’s policies, projects and initiatives.
• FLORA: Federated Learning Ovulation tRacking App with Reward System
• Flowback: Open-source decision system that aims to transform collective decision making through the innovation Predictive Liquid Democracy (PLD).
• QX Travel Experience: Web3 ecosystem connecting cities and tourists with decentralised identities and innovative reward systems.
• Trade On Chain: Open-source framework for international commercial contracts.
• AUTHBOND: Enhancing accountability in Web3 contracting by integrating privacy-preserving Know Your Business (KYB) checks and bid bonds into reusable on-chain identities, fostering trust, regulatory compliance, and efficiency in digital trade.
• VALUE4ALL: Data aggregation platform to incentivize data sharing and create quality datasets.
• TAC!: Traceability and Trust in the Agrifood supply Chains.
• DIDimo: Credential issuance/verification compliancy and marketplace.
• AI-MetaBloQ: Patient-centric DLT biosample usage chain marketplace with a built in AI biosample quality assessment tool.
• ZKorum: Verifiable and privacy-preserving social network that aims to enhance deliberative civic engagement, paving the way for more resilient democracies.

For more details on the awarded Startups, check out the full PR Release.