International payments services firm PayPal has revealed its intentions for blockchain technology space, after it was discovered in an SEC filing that it had invested an undisclosed amount in blockchain technology company Cambridge Blockchain, the latter announced in a blog post.
Cambridge Blockchain CEO Matthew Commons said of the development,
Our service helps streamline digital identity compliance while giving customers control over their identity data. We are honored by PayPal’s vote of confidence, and we look forward to their support and guidance.
Coindesk reports that neither PayPal nor Cambridge Blockchain have revealed the investment amount, which was offered during an extension of a Series A funding round. The total capital raised over nearly a year appears to $10.5 million, which includes funds from investors like HCM Capital and Digital Currency Group.
Speaking to Coindesk, a spokesperson for PayPal said,
We made an investment in Cambridge Blockchain because it is applying blockchain for digital identity in a way that we believe could benefit financial services companies including PayPal. Our investment will allow us to explore potential collaborations to leverage blockchain technology.
According to the report, Cambridge Blockchain and PayPal have been working increasing closely over the past year. First the latter was one of the selected startups in a PayPal-sponsored Fintech Europe 2018 accelerator program, and towards the end of 2018 it began working directly with Paypal’s corporate team in San Jose.
Cambridge Blockchain, a member of the Decentralized Identity Foundation, is building a blockchain-based digital identity service that follows Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws to help clients open accounts with financial institutions.
The startup uses the blockchain to store and share data and PayPal may possibly be looking at this service to make its services more efficient. This being PayPal’s first investment in a blockchain company, it is a quite a significant step that is in keeping with the emerging motif of major established entities considering blockchain technology, like The New York Times and rival payments processing system Visa itself.
The use of Blockchain in identity systems is a hot space, which the likes of Facebook and Microsoft are considering.
