According an announcement on Thursday, Blocko said Korea’s oldest bank, Shinhan, as well as KEB Hana Bank, LB Investment and Dadam Investment took part in the round. The investment brings the firm’s total funding to date to over $20 million, according to CoinDesk Korea.
Blocko is working to build business-focused blockchain services, and has been working in conjunction with several national institutions such as the nation’s stock exchange, the Bank of Korea, Hyundai and the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute.
In May, the firm launched a blockchain platform dubbed Aergo Enterprise, aiming to address the “growing need for data sharing between industries and companies in areas such as identity verification, document management, and the Internet of Things”, the firm told told CoinDesk Korea at the time.
Aergo Enterprise has since been deployed by more than 10 companies and institutions at home and abroad.
In the latest update, Blocko CEO Won-beom Kim said that aside from its enterprise work, the firm aims to “showcase various blockchain-based solutions that can be used in areas that have been difficult to implement, such as smart grids and dark data.”
Kik (Again) Asks for Trial in Legal Tussle With SEC Over Token Sale
Kik is hoping to go to trial against U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegations that the company conducted an unregistered securities offering with its 2017 kin token sale.
The SEC filed a status update on the legal battle Thursday, providing a tentative schedule for the proceedings and detailing the parties’ plans for scheduling some remaining depositions.
“Kik requests that the Court set a trial date. The SEC takes no position on whether setting a trial date would be helpful at this stage and submits that the matter can and should be resolved by dispositive motion,” the filing reads.
The tentative schedule, assuming all depositions are able to be completed by the end of January, would be:
Kik has been looking to hold a trial in the case since the summer of 2019. CEO Ted Livingston told CoinDesk in August that Kik was hoping for a May 2020 trial date, but that the SEC had pushed for a later timeline.
At the heart of the case is whether kin tokens, which Kik developed, were securities in 2017 during the ICO. Kik raised $100 million from the sale.
The company has complained of a heavy financial burden since the case began, selling off its original Kik messaging platform and pivoting to focus solely on its cryptocurrency ecosystem.