A Canadian-founded startup is helping Ukrainian healthcare organizations and thousands of refugees access medical records securely with blockchain technology.
Founded by Scarborough natives and cousins Zain Zaidi (CEO) and Ali Zaheer (CTO), TransCrypts is working with grassroots organizations in Ukraine to let hospitals and refugees upload, access, and share medical records while the country’s health care system remains unstable due to the ongoing war.
TransCrypts has helped more than 4,000 refugees gain access to their medical records, and found an almost 40 percent increase in the quality of their healthcare.
Just about a year after that project started in 2022, TransCrypts raised $3.2 million ($2.4 million USD) in pre-seed funding in January 2023 to expand its record management platform to other types of documents that need to be verified, including legal and financial records.
The round, which was raised on a SAFE note, was led by Mark Cuban and Protocol Labs, with participation from Techstars, Alumni Ventures, One Piece Ventures, The Fund, Global Millennial Capital, Underdog Labs, Atland Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Decentralized VC, and a “number” of undisclosed angel investors.
More recently, TransCrypts went live in Turkey to help recent earthquake victims. Similar to its initiative in Ukraine, Turkish hospitals have been put out of service due to infrastructure damages. As a result, patients who received care at these facilities were unable to access their medical records.
Working with the city of Adana, TransCrypts’ platform would give patients full access to their verified medical history, which they can share with their new hospital.
“We hope to be able to continue giving back through initiatives like this as we scale out business,” said Zaidi and Zaheer in a joint statement to BetaKit.
According to TransCrypts, its project in Ukraine has helped more than 4,000 refugees gain access to their medical records, and found an almost 40 percent increase in the quality of their healthcare.
TransCrypts’ API-enabled platform also connects with existing HR and payroll databases for income verification forms. Using blockchain technology, TransCrypts breaks the files into thousands of pieces or blocks, and stores them on computers around the world.
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“Not only does this make lending, leasing, and hiring a lot more efficient but also more equitable, by removing the need for background checks, which have a proven history of aiding discrimination,” said Zaidi. “Our platform puts the individual consumer in the driver’s seat, where they have full control of their information and how it’s being shared.”
TransCrypts said that employees have shared over 1.1 million employment and income verification documents through its platform. Currently live at over 140 different enterprises, its client base includes Zoom, Urban Outfitters, and Spirit, among others.
TransCrypts was established in 2020 and incubated at The Hub at the University of Toronto’s (U of T) Scarborough campus. The startup won a couple of startup competitions in 2022, securing $5,000 from The Hub and $10,000 from U of T Entrepreneurship.
Dual-headquartered between California and Whitby, Ontario, TransCrypts noted it has three Canadian employees in its team’s nine-person headcount. It is currently making around $70,000 in revenue per month, and aims to triple that in the next 18 months by scaling its team and its offerings.
Featured image courtesy TransCrypts.
