Rexs.io is a data trust company offering a blockchain-based digital notarization service that creates a shield of trust for any data, including IoT streams, live video feeds, documents, images, and more.
As part of their journey on BlockStart’s Acceleration Programme, as a DLT/blockchain startup provider, they were looking for new opportunities for collaboration with end-user SMEs that could validate and help them improve their “rexs.io” blockchain solution.
We spoke with Head of Communications Agata Kukwa to know more about Rexs.io and their participation in BlockStart.
In one paragraph, what is Rexs.io?
We are A Data Trust Company.
We support fraud detection, an increase in documentation quality, process simplification, and the boost of direct sales for various industries.
Can you tell us how the idea for your startup began?
The history of rexs.io goes back to March 2018, when the DAC team presented its R&D results at the 2nd Productive4.0 Consortium Conference and Workshops in Budapest. The company had been working on DLT applications in Productive4.0 project, where 109 partners from 19 countries worked together to examine methods, concepts, and technologies for service-oriented architecture and electronic components for the Industrial Internet of Things. EUR 106 million was the total project budget. Almost half of it was funded, partly by the EU, partly by the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership (ECSEL) Joint Undertaking and the national authorities of involved countries. The project ended at the end of April 2020. (Grant agreement No 737459.).
The Business Platform designed and implemented by our team was meant as an interoperability platform (technological stack) that can be used to support information sharing in the multi-stakeholder environment of the digital industry. The platform supported data provenance monitoring through external blockchain signatures.
Thanks to decoupling of data and trust facilitated by DLT based data notarization, all data packets fed by IoT devices are stored off-chain while the hash-value of a package is stored on a distributed ledger. The hash of data is, therefore, an immutable reference enabling identification of any changes in data stored in off-chain storage.
First demonstration and feedback
Diffusion 2019 was a two-day event focusing on the practical application of open-source distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, machine learning, and programmable tokens, to create a new data layer. Alongside hacking, contestants participated in workshops, panels, and expert-led fireside chats on the latest trends in enterprise & blockchain, token economics, interoperability, deep learning & AI, and more.
Over five hundred programmers in 10 tracks competed against each other in the Diffusion 2019 hackathon. 45 teams made it through the weekend and presented their projects to judges on Sunday afternoon. It took our team 36h to build an award-winning application. The goal was to create an intuitive, low-cost, non-intrusive demonstrator capable of efficiently tackling high velocity, high volume video and data stream, and storage inefficiency of the Ethereum Network.
Rexs.io team has been awarded the first prize in 2 tracks: “Web 2.5: onboarding the rest of the world to decentralized technology” and “Sharing in Consortia Networks: permissioned, tokenized data sharing with T-Labs” and Bronze Runner-Up prize in the general classification.
What is Rexs.io passionate about achieving?
We believe that information is power and data is the new oil; whoever controls data or has the power and resources to manipulate it can influence entire countries, e.g., through search engine manipulation. Similarly, visual content can easily be maliciously doctored or manufactured all together, e.g., using deepfake technologies (in the more sophisticated frauds) or by simply modifying the metadata of the images.
Only 31% of data specialists have a high level of confidence in their organizations’ ability to deliver trusted data at speed.
With progressing digitization more and more decision-making processes are data-dependent. We must be able to guarantee that this data can be trusted. Its source must be incontestable, in-transit tamper-resistance unquestionable, and the entire data flow and decision process — auditable.
Who are the team members and what backgrounds do you have?
The team used to work together as a part of multiple DAC projects, proving the capability of delivering solutions to meet customers’ expectations. Specialization in B2B software and hardware solutions brings us closer to potential clients’ needs. The team has complex expertise in software engineering, enterprise integration, computer science, management, sales, marketing, and cryptography. We can build a product, launch it, and sell it, which is confirmed with our strong cooperation with large, industry clients as Thales (French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the security, defense, transportation, and aerospace markets) or Infineon (a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, spin-off from Siemens AG).
Can you tell us about the prototype you have developed with the support of BlockStart Acceleration Programme?
Rexs.io is a technology stack for DLT-based notarization of existing data and data ingestion streams with a clear decoupling of trust and persistence layers. Organizations can, therefore, benefit from the immutability and tamper-resistance of the distributed ledgers without data throughput limitations typical of permissionless DLTs.
Rexs.io has a modular architecture with standardized APIs between its core services. This simplifies the process of plugging in new components that can:
- provide interfaces to different storage systems,
- facilitate connectivity with different DLTs, and
- provide support for various data producers.
Rexs.io can be plugged into existing infrastructures without significant changes, limiting the time and cost of implementation.
We abstract the technical complexities and nuances of the DLT ecosystem in order to help with the onboarding of the rest of the world. Our solution is built with intuitive user interfaces and an end-to-end chain of trust and scalability in mind. By design, Rexs.io is technology agnostic. We provide a framework with the freedom to choose and deploy the most suitable stack, rather than forcing a user to utilize a particular blockchain or a storage solution.
What were you most excited about in taking part of BlockStart Acceleration Programme?
The most exciting part was to have the opportunity to present our technology to real customers and SMEs. We could learn how this type of company is reacting to our offer and how much market education needs to be done to make blockchain understandable for a broader audience.
Which were the major challenges you have faced during the development and market/fit validation of your prototype?
The main challenge was to explain how our technology works without going into too many blockchain details. Our goal is to abstract blockchain-related difficulties form interfaces of our users.
What unique aspects does your company and the prototype you have developed have to offer to the market sectors/type of companies you wish to enter/sell and to the blockchain ecosystem in Europe, as a whole?
Main competitive advantage: Rexs.io abstracts the technical complexities and nuances of the DLT ecosystem in order to help with the onboarding of the users not familiar with blockchain. It makes it easier to implement since it does not require the adopter to have an intimate blockchain knowledge. From the moment rexs.io is plugged into adopter’s infrastructure, it may be operated by non-blockchain-savvy employees. Also, unlike the competition, rexs.io works both with live data streams and data batches, depending on the needs of the adopter.
Is collaboration with SME adopters important for piloting your solution?
It is crucial!
Where do you see your company in 5 years?
We believe that data notarization will become a new standard for companies working with data as input for other processes. Rexs.io will be a leader in this field.