SA’s anti-piracy startup Custos raises $420k from TIA

Funding Rounds

▤ Summary

Custos – founded by staff at Stellenbosch University and based at the LaunchLab – combats digital piracy by embedding bitcoin bounties as watermarks within videos and movies. The funding agreement will allow Custos to accelerate product development, while simultaneously freeing up resources to spend on bringing the product to the widest possible market,” said G­J van Rooyen, chief executive officer (CEO) of Custos. “Custos is a good example of the kind of innovation ventures for which TIA was established to provide support, where science and technology advancements are the basis for creating new products, services and global enterprises,” said Segopotso Moshapo, head of ICT strategic technology area at TIA. The startup is targeting the global content protection market, using bitcoin blockchain to create a “tracking technology” for media piracy. It is currently serving clients in the film industry, and is collaborating with the United Kingdom (UK)-­based Erudition Digital to bring its solution to e-book publishing.

$ Funding

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Amount $413.0K Total raised
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Date August 26, 2016 Announcement date
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Investors LaunchLab, Technology Innovation Agency Lead investors
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Company http://www.custostech.com Funded company

▥ Classifications

industries
No industries detected
applications
Anti Piracy

◇ AskAI Classifications

Labels
Content Protection Software SaaS Digital Rights Management

▦ Linked Companies