Vijay Pravin Maharajan is the founder and CEO of bitsCrunch, a startup based in Germany and India. The company was launched in May 2020 in India, then later established in Germany in 2021. Young Vijay who is 30 years old is a Blockchain / NFT expert who sees tremendous growth in these new areas requiring cutting edge technologies.
bitsCrunch is positioned as the guardian of the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) ecosystem. NFT is a digital asset that links ownership to unique physical or digital items, such as works of art, music, videos, or even real estate. They are modern-day collectibles.
Vijay says bitsCrunch is one of the top 4 Artificial Intelligence companies in Munich, Germany that excels in Blockchain technology. He believes that blending a proven technology like AI with Blockchain can do wonders and make the ecosystem for these much safer and more reliable.
Blockchain is a system of recording information that makes it impossible to hack, change or cheat the system. AI is a wide-ranging branch of computer systems associated with building smart machines which are capable of performing human tasks.
In 2020, he was among the top 20 data scientists chosen to be followed on LinkedIn. He was also recognized as one of the top 40 data scientists in India. He was speaking in Ted Talks and was being celebrated. There were many other awards coming his way.
bitsCrunch is headquartered in Germany as Blockchain is not fully regulated in India. The company is also based in India. It was a well-thought-out decision. NFT sales hit $ 25 billion in 2021, and it is growing fast with Metaverse in place. Metaverse describes a fully-realized digital world that exists beyond the world in which we live.
"We are data experts. We crunch each and every bit of data and that's the reason behind the name ' bitsCrunch’." Vijay has built up a cross-functional team having people with more than 25+ years of experience in data analytics, machine learning, AI, and Blockchain. He wants to employ people from his home - Tamil Nadu, and the rest of India. He is also hiring women, particularly those who have had to take a break for personal reasons.
bitsCrunch now offers 4 products:
1. NFT Information Center - A real-time NFT analytics dashboard and portfolio tracker.
2. AI Enhanced Safety Feature (Scour) - An AI agent that acts as a watchdog to flag spoofing transactions that manipulates both volume and price of the assets in the NFT ecosystem B2B.
3. Fair Price Value Estimation for an Asset (Liquify) - A fair value estimation and analytics for digital assets (NFTs) using AI to empower the community to embrace and value their assets in real-time B2B.
4. Digital Asset Forgery Detection System (Crunch Davinci) - An AI model that flags forgeries, copycats, and bootleg digital art contents thereby protecting the artists and their creation.
Vijay is confident of reaching prospective clients such as NFT marketplaces, NFT collections, and NFT enthusiasts. bitsCrunch will be useful to venture capitalists and Blockchain enthusiasts as well.
We prevent malicious activities in the NFT Marketplaces and make them the most trusted places to buy, sell and trade NFTs. We secure NFTs on Blockchains which differentiates them from others”, says Vijay.
Vijay is looking to hire people who are well adept in math, statistics, data science, and any blockchain specialization. He is aiming to expand his business venture with 1000+ employees in the next 5 years. In the way forward, Vijay believes that with the kind of manpower and resources available in India, digital assets will become one of the major asset classes in the near future.
bitsCrunch partners with Mastercard
The German-Indian analytics company bitsCrunch is supported by Mastercard's start-up program. The payment service provider's funding program helps promising start-ups to grow in a more targeted manner and to build up a global customer base.
It is noteworthy to mention that Mastercard is entering the crypto space to facilitate transactions where non-crypto users may purchase digital assets with fiat currencies (credit and debit cards), and in the process bitsCrunch would assist these non-crypto users in securing their digital assets. Vijay Pravin Maharajan, Founder and CEO of bitsCrunch commented on this partnership, “With tech-savvy tools, an incredible team, and industry expertise, bitsCrunch ensures consistent quality and safety across the digital assets startups. Collaborating with MasterCard Start Path helps us deliver the best-in-class solutions to emerging crypto industry customers and transforming business landscapes. Also, we are glad that bitsCrunch will be incorporated into the MasterCard Start Path program."
Speaking about the partnership, MasterCard Start Path Program Team said, “With MasterCard, startups around the globe can develop platforms across open banking, predictive financial modeling for small businesses, smart rental payments, and more. The partnership with bitsCrunch allows companies to access MasterCard's global ecosystem and reach new audiences through MasterCard customers. The collaboration will provide safe and secure transactions, which will enhance the brand's credibility'."
All about bitsCrunch
Company Related Questions
1. What is your company’s story? How, why, and when was it founded?
We are Data Experts; we Crunch each and every Bit of data (Blockchain Data) and that’s the
reason behind the name ‘bitsCrunch’. We are a Cross-functional team with more than 25+
years of experience in Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and
Blockchain. We currently have 20+ full-time members in the team.
bitsCrunch was founded in May 2020 in India with an aim of doing some niche things in the
world of data. In 2021, we stepped into Blockchain, and we have our headquarters in
Germany. We are an analytics firm in the NFT space. NFT sales hit 25 billion in 2021, and it
is expanding at a faster pace with Metaverse in place. We help secure the NFT ecosystem. We
use AI to solve all the potential problems within the NFT Ecosystem.
With the world progressing towards a creator’s economy and the evolution of blockchain
technology, we as a Blockchain Analytics firm, provide AI-enabled securing services to
bolster the NFT Ecosystem.
2. What is your business model?
Business Model: Offering secure services in a SaaS Model.
Products:
NFT Information Centre (Unleash NFTs) - A real-time NFT analytics dashboard and
portfolio tracker. B2C product
AI-Enhanced Safety Feature (SCOUR) - An AI agent that acts as a watchdog to flag
spoofing transactions that manipulates both volume and price of the assets in the NFT
ecosystem. B2B
Fair Price value estimation for an Asset (Liquify), A fair value estimation; analytics for
Digital Assets (NFTs) using AI to empower the community to embrace and value their assets
in real-time. B2B
Digital Asset Forgery Detection System (Crunch Davinci) - An AI model that flags
forgeries, copycats and bootleg digital art contents thereby protecting the artists and their
creations.
3. Who are your clients? How do you reach them?
● NFT Marketplaces
● NFT Collections
● NFT Artists, NFT Collectors, NFT Enthusiasts
● Venture Capitalists
● Blockchain Enthusiasts
B2B product Scour is already used by customers like Rarible ; Polygon.
Currently, we are reaching out through investors, contacts from advisors and networking
leads.
4. What notable milestones have you achieved to date?
Oct 2020 - Runner-up at an Untitled hackathon.
Aug 2020 - Became deeplearning.ai Ambassador.
Dec 2020 - Top 40 startups at Web Summit 2020.
Jan 2021 - Recognized as TOP Machine Learning Companies in Germany.
Mar 2021 - Powered Black Artist Community by providing NFT tracker ; Analytics
dashboard.
May 2021 - On-boarded client partners - Rarible, Polygon ; Covalent.
We are one of the Sponsors for the Global NFT Summit which took place on 28th -
29th July 2021 - We are also the sponsors of ETH Global Hackathon.
5. Anything we should know about the Founders’ biography? (thought leaders? notable
achievements we could capitalize on?)
Information about the core team members:
Vijay Pravin Maharajan: Founder; CEO. Vijay is a 3-time TEDx Speaker, TU Munich
Graduate, previously worked with companies like Volkswagen; Siemens. Recognized as
‘Top 20 Data Scientists to be followed on LinkedIn’, followed by over 40k+ connections, and
has over 8+ years of technical experience in Blockchain and Data Analytics. He is also
awarded as the ‘Top Men Leaders to look up to in 2022’.
Saravanan Jaichandaran: Chief Data Scientist. Saravanan is a Data Analytics professional
with proven ability in machine learning, deep learning and data science to drive process
efficiency and data integrity. He is a Masters grad from City College of Dublin, Ireland.
Ashok Varadarajan: CTO. PhD (Germany) Ashok has over 9+ years of experience as a Data
Scientist in the Life Sciences Industry. He is specialized in the field of multi-omics data
analytics, Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence.
Product-Related Questions
6. Describe your product’s user journey/flow (how does it work)
We have already indexed the data across blockchains like Ethereum; Polygon, and are
planning to expand to other blockchains like BSC, Solana, Avalanche and a few others as
well.
People get smarter with new spoofing techniques, so in order to confront all those techniques,
We build AI models to combat all the potential issues and safeguard the NFT Marketplace.
7. Does your product bear a unique value proposition (that is unmatched), as of this
moment? If yes, please elaborate on the USP.
Our unique selling proposition that sets us apart from other projects :
- Confront the wash trades within the marketplaces
- Real-time NFT analytics for marketplaces and portfolio trackers
- Quickly assess the fair price for NFT’s
- Verify whether an NFT Digital Asset is forged or not
8. What valuable user feedback have you gained as of late?
Teams like Polygon, Rarible; other smaller marketplaces and collections, DAOs and
VCs are using our dashboard to find insights on subsequent funding rounds.
9. What features do you not have yet, that you feel will be necessary for the road ahead?
Metaverse Entry
Additional NFT ecosystem securing services
NFT Meta data services
Rewards Program in NFT market cap
Community DAO
We would like to add some features over the period across the journey to strengthen the Ecosystem.
10. Why would users typically prefer your product over others?
We foresee ourselves as the ecosystem guardians protecting the NFT world with our
value-added securing services.
To combat the malicious transactions that occur in the marketplaces and to prevent
the NFT enthusiast from getting exploited with forged NFT assets while providing the
Fair Price Estimation for the NFT Assets
11. What traction can you demonstrate?
We have got a fast growing 20+ member team. We have got 8x customers since Seed round.
Now, we are backed by Tier-1 investors like Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com
Capital, Polygon Studios, Borderless Capital ; few others.
Campaign Objectives, Audiences
12. What would you say are the campaign’s main objectives?
Public Outreach is required to spread the message that WE (bitsCrunch) are working on
securing services using AI for the NFT space, which resonates with more customer
acquisition of our services, which inturn helps during Public sale of our tokens.
We would like to position ourselves as NFT Ecosystem Guardians and pioneers in blockchain
technology solving the real use case problem in the current market and we would like to
publish the projects which we are working on across media and get traction and make a
bigger impact in the global market.
13. Who is the core audience you would like to reach?
Blockchains (ETH, Polygon, AVAX, and so on)
NFT Marketplaces
NFT Collections
NFT Artists. NFT Collectors, NFT Enthusiasts
Blockchain Enthusiast
The messages we would like to deliver to the target audience is a problem we are trying to
solve to bring trust in the ecosystem.
14. Which companies would you like to be mentioned with?
Covalent, Polygon, Rarible, Now Nodes, 5ire Blockchain, Marvellous NFTs, AlgoBlocks
15. Any terms or phrases you like? Any term you would like to coin?
bitsCrunch uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help secure the NFT marketplace.
bitsCrunch enables NFT enthusiasts to decide which NFTs to buy, and most importantly,
which not to buy.
Enabling, Engaging ; Empowering Big NFT Ecosystems.
bitsCrunch will be the Verified tick of NFTs in the near future.
Our analytics and security products provide actionable NFT insights and safeguard NFT
assets. Get ahead of the NFT asset security curve with our AI-powered platforms that are
simple to implement and easy to use.
16. What is your main b2b/b2c value proposition?
bitsCrunch enables NFT enthusiasts to decide which NFTs to buy, and most importantly,
which not to buy.
We secure the NFT marketplaces from malicious activities, and make them the most secure
marketplace to buy, trade ; sell NFTs.
We secure the NFTs on Blockchains and that makes it a difference between different chains.
17. Please provide three unique angles that you think communicate your brand/mission well
NFT Ecosystem Guardians
NFT Police (#NFTPolice - on Twitter)
Secure Your NFTs with bitsCrunch
18. Please provide 5 consumer-focused headlines you would like to see
Decide which NFTs to buy
Know which is a good NFT / which is a bad NFT
bitsCrunch secures our / your NFTs
bitsCrunch is the NFT Police (#NFTPolice - on Twitter)
Secure Your NFTs with bitsCrunch
19. Please provide 5 business-focused headlines you would like to see
Secure your Chain (Blockchain) from malicious or bad actors
Be the most trusted Blockchain for NFTs
Secure your Marketplaces (OpenSea, Rarible, and so on) from malicious or bad actors
Be the most trusted Marketplace for NFTs
Secure your Collections (BoredApes, Punks, and so on) from malicious or bad actors
Be the most trusted NFT Collection
For Investors (VCs): Invest onto good NFT projects in the subsequent fundraises
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