TACEO raises $5.5 million seed funding to expand beyond crypto with privacy-focused tech

TACEO, a software development company based in Austria, has completed a $5.5 million seed funding round led by Archetype VC, with participation from a16z CSX, Cyber.Fund, A.Capital Ventures, Polymorphic Capital, and several angel investors. The company plans to use the funds to expand its team and scale its technology beyond cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, exploring areas such as identity verification, financial services, and artificial intelligence [1].

TACEO was established in 2022 by a team of developers from Graz University of Technology. The company is best known for its Poseidon hash function and its development of a “Private Shared State” technology, which employs coSNARKs—combining Multiparty Computation and Zero-Knowledge Proofs—to protect data during computation while proving outcomes. In 2023, the firm partnered with Sam Altman’s World (WLD) to develop an iris-matching verification service for access to the World network [1].

However, the iris-scanning verification system raised significant privacy concerns and faced public backlash. Governments in Indonesia, Brazil, and China Hong Kong have taken actions against the project, citing concerns over the collection and storage of biometric data such as facial and iris scans. Despite these challenges, TACEO asserts that its solution fully encrypts the biometric data of over 14 million users, making it inaccessible even to the World team. It claims to maintain the largest Multiparty Computation-secured dataset on public record [1].

The company has previously demonstrated its capability to handle sensitive data through its pandemic-era project, which tracked the spread of infections without exposing underlying information. TACEO’s focus remains on enabling secure, privacy-preserving collaboration across multiple parties without the need for centralized trust [1].

Its long-term goal is to leverage its cryptographic tools to serve industries beyond crypto, emphasizing secure data handling and identity verification in an increasingly data-sensitive world.

Source: [1] World’s iris-scanner builder secures $5.5m in seed funding round (https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/688b77e2d9e6f441cde313dd/)