Blockai secures $547,000 in seed funding for blockchain digital intellectual property platform

Blockai announced that they have raised $547,000 in a seed round of funding to relaunch their blockchain copyright service.

When Blockai was first founded in 2015, it was envisioned as the "Netscape browser for Bitcoin," trying to turn the blockchain into a social media stream that allows users to send messages and authenticate products. Now Blockai is working on a new tool that allows artists to prove or claim that they own the copyright to an image.

The funding came from AngelList, Social Starts, Sterling VC and Vectr Ventures, as well as about 15 angel investors, including Betfair founder Josh Hannah and Epsilon Records founder Nate Houk.

Blockai CEO Nathan Lands said in an interview that the latest version of Blockai's product is very different from the original version. With the latest version, any traces of Bitcoin or blockchain use will be largely hidden.

Landers said:

“Artists didn’t want to use Bitcoin, so we simplified it and found a simpler way to prove ownership.”

Blockchain startups Ascribe and Mediachain are also currently working on this idea, but Landes hopes Blockai can be closer to users.

In addition, investors emphasized that Blockai’s potential market size was the reason for their investment.

Investor Ron Williams said:

“You only need to look at the stock photography libraries and the various photo storage services that professionals use, like Flickr, Google Photos, Apple iCloud, etc., to understand how valuable Blockai can be, and that’s just in terms of digital photos.”

Pricing tiers

While some startups are eyeing this use case in hopes of attracting consumers through a freemium model, Blockai’s goal is different.

Blockai will now charge a small processing fee for inserting records into the Bitcoin blockchain, which can be paid through the network using Blockai’s wallet.

Blockai offers three service packages to users, and charges a fee ranging from US$0.2 to US$0.5 through Stripe for each registration.

Landes believes that such pricing of the service is beneficial to users because it can prevent bad users from fraudulently claiming ownership of works that do not belong to them.

“In interviews with artists, we found that artists wanted us to charge a fee so they could understand how we make money.”

Use of Services

After registration, Blockai will provide users with a free trial service.

First, Blockai prompts the user to drag and drop a file they want to claim ownership of.

Blockai then creates a file record on the Bitcoin blockchain, generating a certificate that the artist can keep.

Landes believes the certificate is important because artists may need to sue people who infringe on their copyright, although the legal effectiveness of the certificate has not yet been tested.

Landes also said he believes his efforts have positioned Blockai to capture a big opportunity.

“Blockai has a lot of things to do in terms of digital media assets and controlling your work over the internet. We believe that everything will start with the Blockai registration process.”

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/blockai-raises-547k-to-relaunch-as-blockchain-digital-rights-platform/
By Pete Rizzo
Compiled by: Kyle
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/blockai-raises-547k-seed-funding)