Five companies have received funding through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Silicon Valley Innovation Program regarding blockchain utilization and distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Authorities indicated the five use cases support the missions of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and the DHS Privacy Office (PRIV).
“This was a very competitive solicitation with more than 80 applicants from across the globe with diverse perspectives and approaches to solving the variety of problem sets we shared in our solicitation,” Anil John, SVIP technical director, said. “The selected start-ups proposed innovative solutions to the problems, demonstrated a firm commitment to technical interoperability using global standards from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and provided concrete plans to commercialize their final solutions. With this, we are demonstrating the clear intersection of DHS priorities, industry needs, and public interest.”
MATTR Limited, a woman-owned start-up based in Auckland, New Zealand, was awarded $200,000 to help USCIS develop a capability to digitally issue and validate essential work and task licenses. Based in Chapel Hill, N.C., Mesur IO, Inc. received $193,612 to develop a capability to enhance CBP’s visibility of food supply chains. Spherity GmbH, a Dortmund, Germany based start-up, was awarded $145,000 to develop a capability to enhance CBP’s supply chain traceability of direct-to-consumer e-commerce shipments. SecureKey Technologies, a business based in Toronto, Canada and current SVIP portfolio company, received $193,000 to develop an alternative identifier to the Social Security Number to support PRIV’s SSN Collection and Use Reduction initiative. Lastly, Mavennet Systems, Inc. of Toronto, Canada, was allotted $86,100 to support CBP by improving natural gas’s traceability.