Singapore’s Dedoco, bags US$2.45mil seed funding led by Vertex Ventures

• Seed investment round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia
• Aims to expand into new markets, scale platform and technology 

DEDOCO, Singapore’s first decentralised digital document and signing platform, announced the completion of its seed investment round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia.

The current round brings its seed capital sum to USD2.45mil (RM10.1mil).

[RM1 = US$0.24]

Co-founded in 2020 by Daphne Ng and Dr. Ernie Teo, Dedoco said it seeks to transform how enterprises manage digital workflows while issuing trusted, verifiable documents and credentials, the startup said in a statement.

It enables document authentication by securing real-time verification options while an audit trail is recorded on blockchain to maintain transaction integrity, it said.

“Document security and privacy are vital for organisations as they protect important document data and business interests. We are excited to partner with Vertex Ventures SEA to make our solutions accessible to governments and businesses in the region,” said Daphne Ng, Dedoco co-founder and chief executive officer.

The startup said its key differentiator is its ability to provide privacy and security options to organisations.

Its application programming interface-first (API-first) and modularised approach allows companies and digital platforms to experience seamless, secure document transactions without compromising convenience or privacy, it claimed. 

The ability to deliver and complete documents digitally also removes the need for physical documents to be couriered, thus helping organisations achieve better productivity and savings, it added.

To date, Dedoco’s clients span from government organisations, banks, professional services and real estate, the startup said.

Moving forward, Dedoco looks to further penetrate the global software-as-a-service (SaaS) market to provide more industries and organisations the ability to access and transact trusted documents, the company revealed.

According to Dedoco, it aims to expand into new markets and scale its platform and technology to support a robust product roadmap.

New features will be progressively rolled out over the next 12 to 24 months with an emphasis on increasing connectivity with various cloud and system partners, it said.

“Current competing solutions rely on centralised trust and take custody of digital documents,” said Ernie Teo, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Dedoco.

“This poses security concerns particularly for companies dealing with highly sensitive and confidential documents. Our decentralised architecture and a no-store solution provide our clients with the highest form of data and document privacy.”

“The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an urgent need for companies to be digitally ready as virtual interactions have become a new norm. Dedoco has demonstrated the ability to address the pain points faced by users and the industry,” said Chua Joo Hock, managing partner of Vertex Ventures SEA.

“We are excited to back them as they continue to build their platform to create seamless and secure transactions and to assist enterprises with their digital workflow.”

Dedoco is currently backed by prominent angel investors like Willy Arifin and Ong Chee Beng, who is also the country manager of AWS Singapore.