Israeli blockchain startup Clear has raised $13 million in a recently closed Series A round to build a high-volume transaction system like payments between telcos.
Announced on Wednesday, the round was led by Fidelity’s venture capital arm Eight Roads, along with participation from Telefónica Innovation Ventures, Telekom Innovation Pool of Deutsche Telekom, HKT and Singtel Innov8.
The influence of telcos can also be seen in the investments. This will also benefit the company as its investors will be the primary user of its solutions.
Notably, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom also participated in the pilot for Clear’s solutions along with other major telecom operators, including BT Group, Orange, and Telstra.
“What that lets us do is create a trusted view of the true status of the relationship within the company’s business partners because they’re now looking at the same pricing and usage. They can find any issues in real-time, either in commercial information or in service delivery, and they can even actually resolve those inside our platform,” Gal Hochberg, co-founder of Clear, told TechCrunch.
Disrupting a trillion-dollar industry
The startup is working on a decentralized solution based on zero-knowledge proofs, facilitating telecoms a shared platform to collaborate and settle payments through automation. The company claims that with its tech, such companies can drive down operating costs, tackle mobile fraud, and increase efficiencies.
Founded in 2018, the startup has a team of 18 working on its solution aiming to disrupt an industry that handles B2B transactions of $150 trillion of annual global trade, earning banks over $140 billion in fees.
“We use blockchain technology to create those interactions in ways that it is auditable, cryptographically secure and ensures that both sides are synced and seeing the same information,” Hochberg added.
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