SOMA, a blockchain solution to facilitate trade and social interactions, has received an initial investment from Business Finland.
In Round One SOMA will receive ?50,000 from the firm, which will last two months. After this period, Business Finland will evaluate the company success in meeting designated goals. These include the onboarding of retail and manufacturing partners for SOMA upcoming pilot program.
If Round One is successful, SOMA will be eligible for an additional ?500,000 to ?1m for Round Two and then ?3m to ?20m for Round Three.
Finland-based SOMA is a P2P marketplace which leverages social capital through its blockchain platform. The company enables buying and selling of products within seconds, with all transactions recorded on the ledger to protect against fraud.
To incentivise consumers with cooperation with one another, the company offers digital tokens as incentives.
The company is looking to launch a cryptocurrency wallet in the future, which will let users buy and sell their tokens and monitor to the status of their portfolio.
According to the company roadmap, during Q4 it will look to establish partnerships within Singapore to support the launch of its pilot next year.
SOMA co-founder and CEO Jukka Hilmola said, “We are extremely proud Business Finland has selected SOMA, recognizing the promise and long-term value of our new social marketplace.
“This validates our next-generation blockchain-based e-commerce model, currently in preview on Android. These funds will help us accelerate our go-to-market strategy and meet our aggressive growth targets for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019.”
Earlier in the week, fellow Finnish FinTech company Kodit.io raised ?1.7m in its seed round of funding, as it looks to expand across Europe. The company uses AI to offer homeowners accurate property valuations and cash offers.
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