Indian government taps 5ire and Network Capital for blockchain initiative

Indian Government’s think tank has partnered with crypto-focused 5ire and Network Capital to launch a blockchain module. Network Capital is a career and mentorship exploration platform.

The blockchain initiative project will be sponsored by NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) which currently has Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) in over 10,000 schools in India. Both ATL and AIM are part of an initiative by the government of India to “create and promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

This comes against the backdrop of the ongoing push by the Indian government to introduce a digital Rupee whose pilot program started in October 2022 just about a month after releasing the first Digital Rupee concept note.

The rise of 5ire

During the launch of the blockchain initiative, the mission director at AIM, Dr Chintan Vaishnav, acknowledged 5ire’s leadership for what he terms:

“Working actively with ATL to do this blockchain module.”

5ire became popular after raising $100 million during its Series A funding round in July 2022. According to the company’s words, the funding made the startup:

“[The] world’s first blockchain unicorn with sustainability at its core as it looked to align itself with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).”

The Series A funding was led by renowned UK-based conglomerate Sram and Mram. However, only about $20 million out of the total amount have been so far. $10 million was released on the day of signing and $10 million was released in November 2022.

Interestingly, 5ire’s mainnet is yet to be launched and the project already seems to be attracting a lot of interest to a point of even being recognized by the Indian government for partnership. The testnet was released towards the end of November 2022 and the mainnet is expected to be ready in the third quarter of 2023.