Edinburgh blockchain tech specialist looks to scale up

An Edinburgh-based blockchain technology specialist is eyeing international growth on the back of a series of client wins and its latest funding injection.

Left to right are Peter Ferry, Hannah Rudman and Stuart Fraser of Wallet.Services. Picture: Stewart Attwood

Wallet.Services was founded by Scottish tech stalwarts Stuart Fraser and Peter Ferry in 2016 with the aim of reducing the complexity and security risks experienced in everyday digital life. It focuses on so-called “distributed ledger” technology.

The firm has steadily grown its client base over the past year, with the Scottish Government’s Improvement Service – the national improvement organisation for local government in Scotland – among its contract wins.

It is also seeing increasing activity in the oil and gas and energy sectors with the company set to announce major industry partnerships later in the year.

The fledgling company has already built research partnerships with the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Manufacturing Centre and the University of Edinburgh’s Blockchain Technology Laboratory to ensure emerging academic developments are applied.

Ferry, who is the firm’s commercial director, said: “We continue to focus on the real world industry problems of our customers. We’re applying distributed ledger technology to enable new ways for organisations to collaborate to create business efficiencies in supply chains whilst cryptographically securing privacy and commercial confidence.”

Managing director Fraser added: “Distributed ledger technology moved into the mainstream in 2018, with public sector projects building trust and transparency in citizen services and private sector projects reducing timescales for tracking products in transit from a week to just seconds.”

The company secured its latest funding round during the closing quarter of 2018 – led by venture capital firm Mercia Technology and existing angel investors – to support the development of its award-winning Siccar software platform. It is planning on growing its headcount in the capital during 2019, adding senior and crypto engineers to its existing development team as the business enters a scale-up phase.

At the end of 2018, Wallet.Services won a place on the Telefonica O2 accelerator programme for scaling businesses, securing its place against 140 international companies.

The firm’s Siccar software platform won CitiBank’s Tech for Integrity Challenge in 2017, with a prototype developed during the Scottish Government’s inaugural CivTech programme.