Cambridge Blockchain provides digital identity enterprise software for financial institutions.
Financial institutions face growing compliance challenges related to identity, with know-your-customer costs that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars per year for large banks. Strict data privacy rules such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also limit the ability to access validated customer identity attributes from other trusted parties.
Cambridge Blockchain’s distributed architecture resolves the competing challenges of transparency and privacy, resulting in faster customer onboarding, lower costs, and enhanced compliance through a single, trusted and consistent view of customer reference data.
In July 2019, Cambridge Blockchain announced that they have partnered with LuxTrust, a leading Digital Trust Services Provider in Luxembourg, to create IDKEEP, a privacy-protecting European identity platform. IDKEEP is currently in the private beta-testing phase.
In December 2020, Blockchains Management acquired Cambridge Blockchain.
Cambridge Blockchain was founded in April 2015 with a vision to build the premier blockchain-based digital identity platform. Before founding the company, the Cambridge Blockchain team had explored a wide variety of blockchain use cases and recognized the importance of identity management. The team understood that the anonymous identity architecture of bitcoin-type blockchains was not suitable for enterprise applications, and that simple methods of linking validated identity credentials to a blockchain raised privacy concerns. The decision to base the company in Cambridge, MA (USA), next to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was taken to facilitate collaboration with leading digital identity research scientists at the MIT Media Lab.
Matthew Commons, who founded the company, is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for applying advanced technologies to new fields. He studied blockchain data structures for several years through think-tank and academic programs, with a focus on strategic implications of blockchain technology for businesses. Previously, he served as the founding CFO and Managing Director of venture-backed energy technology company Ogin, where he raised over $150 million of capital and launched the company’s international expansion.
