CHENNAI: Real estate in India has always been a risky business due to the inability of landowners to keep track of the ownership trail or if their survey number has been sold off without their knowledge. AI start-ups like Zebi have been tying up with state government departments and hotel chains across the country to integrate block chain technology into maintaining land records and other confidential data such as birth certificates and education records to prevent identity and property theft.
“We’ve already been providing data security solutions to the Government of Andhra Pradesh to maintain its land records. We are now in advanced talks with a few other state governments across the country to provide block chain-based solutions to maintain birth records, education and land records,” said Babu Munagala, founder and CEO, Zebi Chain. “Data protection against theft, manipulation and data crimes is a $5 billion market in India now,” he said.
“Block chain is a relatively new technology. The time to understand its importance and adoption of solutions by the governments is unpredictable. It can happen quickly,” she said. India, in 2017, topped in the incidence of fraud globally across theft of physical assets, counterfeiting, corruption and intellectual property theft, a survey by Kroll Annual Global Fraud Risk and Report 2017-18 had revealed.
The ease of access to birth and death records of people in state government websites has also facilitated widespread identity theft in India.
Even if the block chain technology takes off, Munagala says, there would be too many AI-based start-ups emerging from India. “Apart from the lack of proper mentors for tech entrepreneurs, the venture capital space is also not aligned for real innovation,” she said.
While the adoption of block chain-based data security solutions is yet to take off in India, Zebi also has other methods to sustain itself. The company raised nearly $10 million from its initial coin offering in March this year, and is transitioning to offer its data security services only in exchange for Zebi utility tokens, similar to a cryptocurrency.
“Our first plan was to grow our business model in India through the Zebi coin. But government regulations on cryptocurrency have made it difficult for us to operate through our utility tokens,” Munagala said.