Haja Networks raised seed funding from Outlier Ventures, Polychain Capital, BigchainDB and Creathor Ventures.

Haja Networks, an Oulu, Finland-based startup working to build foundational distributed and decentralized technologies for the future Internet, announced closing a funding round of an unidsclosed amount.

The investment was led by UK-based Outlier Ventures and also included investors such as Polychain Capital, BigchainDB, and Creathor Ventures.

Haja Networks, founded by CEO Samuli Pöyhtäri and CTO Vesa-Ville Piiroinen, is an ambitious start-up comprised of some of the early team behind OrbitDB and IPFS that is building two new and complementary open-source protocols to enable decentralised databases.

1. Decentralised Database Protocol: An open protocol to build decentralised databases that enables users to own and control their data. The protocol integrates with existing databases, unlocking them to the decentralised web, and enables interoperability between structured data sources.

2. Decentralised Database Network: A marketplace for decentralised database services allowing providers to monetize their software whilst data hungry businesses have straightforward access to the widest range of services.

This approach is diametrically opposed to how traditional centralised databases with their silo structure and associated negative implications (such as loss of control over personal data) are set up.