This week CryptoPotato published an interview with Vinny Lingham, founder of Civic.
Civic is a blockchain-based identity platform that is aiming to “recreate the physical world of identities using blockchain technology”.
Identities will become digitized and secure, which enables users to control their own data and who they can share it.
The ultimate goal of Civic is to create a world where you don’t have to pull out a driver’s license or passport to prove your identity each time you want to transact with different services online.
The company raised $33m in their ICO just over a year ago. What was unique about their ICO was the high number of VC’s who participated. Vinny credits this to his network of connections that he built while working on his previous company ‘Gift’, which was eventually sold to First Data.
Asked about the current state of VC funding and ICO’s, Vinny said:
“You’ve got a situation where you’ve gone from VC’s creating this funding void to the crowd trying to fill this void. The problem is that the crowd doesn’t necessarily know better than the VCS and so the VC’s have a filter. They have a lot of things that they look for that makes people successful and then the crowd kind of goes with whatever is hyped up”.
For Vinny, he sees authenticity and having a long-term view of things as most important for companies trying to raise money through ICO’s.
He also discussed how Civic is creating a network effect by helping ICO’s conduct KYC/AML processes.
“Civic provides a very easy ID infrastructure, you can plug it in, and people can start verifying themselves and sending IDs and documents to us. If Civic users have already done it for another ICO, then they don’t have to do it again. We’ve got a large number of users now, so a lot of our users have already done this process ”.
Vinny also believes in the power of open source networks, as they give more creative freedom and enable developers to work on things that they are passionate about.
“Developers want to welcome things that change the world so what we’re offering the world is better consumer privacy, keeping your data out of the hands of big corporations, decentralizing information. And so we think that’s an appealing project for a lot of people”.
Asked about his advice to entrepreneurs:
“I think as an entrepreneur if you want to advise other entrepreneurs you’ve got to build a vision around what you’re doing that entices people to want to follow your mission. You need to focus on the fundamentals . The most important fundamental in the crypto world is to have a good token economy design. Understand the purpose of your token, how does it function? How does value accrue to it? Find product/market fit. Understand what you’re building and make sure that it works.”
Overall, Civic looks to have positioned itself as a successful role model for other blockchain projects to emulate. The team is dedicated to a long-term vision of empowering people to control their digital identities, and with Vinny at the helm; the project is sure to find even more success.