Dutch startup WordProof awarded 1 million euros by European Commission

Also available in Dutch.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Dutch startup WordProof finished first in the pan-European competition ‘Blockchains for social good’ by the European Commission and won 1 million euros. With this contest, Europe aims to stimulate the use of blockchain technology to solve social problems. WordProof, founded one year ago, managed to leave 175 participants from all over Europe behind.

Global CIGI-Ipsos research shows that confidence in the Internet is declining due to fraud, fake news, and privacy issues, among other things. WordProof wants to use blockchain technology to restore trust in the Internet. “We are building a universal Timestamp Ecosystem,  a global standard that gives consumers a method to verify the reliability of the content on the Internet,” says WordProof founder Sebastiaan van der Lans.

A few weeks ago, WordProof announced that it received an incentive grant from tech giant Block.one and a loan from Innovation Fund Noord-Holland. “With the recognition and financial support from Europe, we can roll out the Timestamp Ecosystem at a higher pace and make WordProof grow even faster as a company. This will enable Europe to define the standard for a reliable Internet for consumers and organisations,” says Van der Lans.

In the Netherlands, DPG Media was the first to use the timestamp technology for its title ‘Indebuurt’ to protect its articles. “We expect search engines and social media platforms to recognize that DPG claimed ownership of its articles through timestamps. Visitors searching the web can see DPG-publications at the top of search results and not another platform that happens to be larger than the local website,” according to Van der Lans.

WordProof wants to work with major publishers and webshops worldwide to protect their content and spread trust. A WordProof timestamp-plugin is already available for WordPress, a Content Management System used by roughly a third of all websites on the internet. Creators without a WordPress-website who are looking for trust and content protection can also use wordproof.io.

About WordProof

WordProof was founded in 2019 by Sebastiaan van der Lans together with Frank van Dalen as an angel investor and partner. The Dutch startup is on a mission to restore trust in the internet. Fraud and fake news make the Internet unreliable. WordProof’s Timestamp Ecosystem enables consumers and search engines to verify the source of the content.

Media

Netherlands, Amsterdam, 2020 Sebastiaan van der Lans, Founder WordProof.io Photo: Bob Bronshoff
Netherlands, Amsterdam, 2020 Sebastiaan van der Lans, Founder WordProof.io Photo: Bob Bronshoff
Jelle van der Schoot

Jelle van der Schoot

Product Lead at WordProof

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