Frankfurt am Main, November 13th, 2023
Lissi, known as a pioneer in identity wallets and verifiable credentials, announces its establishment as an independent startup, supported by investments from neosfer, 9.5 Ventures and the managing directors. The spin-off is also a milestone for neosfer, which launched Lissi in 2019. For Commerzbank’s innovation unit, it is the first spin-off of a self-developed project.
With its Lissi software platform, Lissi offers a comprehensive range of solutions designed to issue, store and verify verifiable credentials and thus enable trustworthy interactions with identity wallets according to European standards. The European Union has recently welcomed a final agreement of the eIDAS 2.0 regulation to introduce European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI) across the European Union. This opens up a whole new market for Lissi. The company’s vision is to become the leading software provider for trusted interactions between organisations and EUDI-Wallet users. The focus is on offering software for interaction with EUDI-Wallets and extensive functions that go beyond the standard protocols proposed by the European Union.
The founders Helge Michael, Sebastian Bickerle and Adrian Doerk explain: “We are proud to make a decisive contribution to strengthening trust in our increasingly digital society. The path to the future is already lined with promising collaborations, including municipal use cases with the cities of Cologne, Leipzig and Dresden as well as various use cases with major banks such as Commerzbank AG and ING Deutschland. These early adopters will benefit from improved process efficiency, reduced paperwork and higher data quality, resulting in significant time and cost savings.”
Kai Werner and Matthias Lais, Managing Directors of neosfer: “The spin-off is proof of the entrepreneurial innovation strength that is realised in the neosfer innovation unit. The spin-off of Lissi is a major milestone for us. It confirms how important it is to give new ideas and approaches space and structure for their development. We are delighted that our innovation unit has succeeded in doing just that.” The close collaboration with neosfer as one of the main investors will continue in the future. The founders are also supported by the venture capital firm 9.5 Ventures, which firmly believes that the management will revolutionise the design of trust-based digital interactions in personal and business processes.
Since its foundation as part of neosfer in 2019, Lissi has initiated and led the IDunion research project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. This is a community of 70 partners and over 350 individual contributors, including well-known companies such as Bundesdruckerei, Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn and DATEV e.G. Lissi has already implemented 35 pilot projects and received the prestigious Handelsblatt Diamond Award, which emphasises its commitment to the further development of digital trust.
We invite the press to engage with the future of digital identity in Europe and offer our perspective to complement your stories and encourage interested organisations to explore the potential of ID-Wallets together with Lissi.
For more information, please visit our website www.lissi.id
For press enquiries please contact: [email protected]
About neosfer
neosfer is the early-stage investor and innovation unit of Commerzbank Group. It investigates future technologies that are relevant to business and society, promotes and develops sustainable, digital solutions, and brings them profitably to the bank and its customers. All of this is done through the three areas of invest, build, connect. It creates access to innovation through strategic venture capital (invest), in-house development of technologies and business models (build), and building ecosystems around the sustainable and digital future of society (connect).
With a portfolio of more than 30 digital and sustainable startups, neosfer has always kept its eyes on the future and is continuously developing. Some successful prototypes, such as the Lissi project, the blockchain-based identity network for self-determined identities, have already emerged from this and are being used in the Commerzbank Group. Through its own events, such as the monthly tech startup event series “Between the Towers” and the Impact Festival, the company strengthens its network in the innovation, venture and sustainability sectors.
neosfer GmbH, or neosfer for short, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Commerzbank AG based in Frankfurt am Main.
About 9.5 Ventures
Ninepointfive is a venture capital fund that co-invests with corporates to take tech-based startups from early stage to maturity. The fund is located in Antwerp, Belgium and invests in Europe and Israel. Ninepointfive’s dedicated focus on corporate-backed ventures, offers its portfolio companies unique acceleration and de-risking opportunities. This is particularly the case in the investment sweetspot: B2B software.