Vertex Ventures leads Singapore blockchain digital signing startup’s $2.5m round

Dedoco, a Singapore-based decentralized digital document and signing platform, announced it has raised S$3.3 million (around US$2.5 million) in seed funding led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia.

Angel investor Willy Arifin, an investor in Indonesian fintech firms BukuKas and KoinWorks, and AWS country manager for Singapore Ong Chee Beng also participated in the round.

Dedoco’s chief technology officer Ernie Teo (left) and chief executive officer Daphne Ng / Photo credit: Dedoco

Founded in 2020 by Daphne Ng and Ernie Teo who are fellows at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), Dedoco enables real-time document verification and signing and records audit trails on blockchain. The company says that it’s the first platform to provide such service in Singapore.

According to Teo, the company’s chief technology officer, current competing solutions typically rely on centralized trust and take custody of digital documents. “This is a huge security concern especially for companies dealing with highly sensitive and confidential documents,” he said.

Dedoco is one of the first digital signing application providers to offer the “Sign with Singpass” feature that allows users to digitally sign documents, a service that was rolled out by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore. It currently counts government organizations, banks, professional services, and real estate companies as its clients.

Dedoco will use the fresh funds to expand into new markets and scale its platform and technology to support its product roadmap. It also plans to progressively roll out new features over the next 12 to 24 months.