Taiwan-based blockchain startup Bitmark Inc. announced that it has raised $1.7M in a seed funding round led by Cherubic Ventures along with other investors WI Harper and Digital Currency Group.

The company plans to establish ownership claims by issuing property titles (or ‘bitmarks’) for user-generated content and data. The combination of a ‘bitmark’ and a digital asset creates a digital property and issuing a ‘bitmark’ for a digital asset, declares an exclusive ownership claim, the release stated.

“Each day millions of us give away what we create and our personal data for free to entities that are profiting from it, and we don't get a cut because we can't claim ownership over it,” Sean Moss-Pultz, CEO of Bitmark said. “The notion of property rights in the digital environment is not yet defined. Bitmark changes that notion by giving each of us property rights to our data. You have to own it to make sure that value is clear."

With the help of bitcoins or credit cards, a ‘bitmark’ can be sold or transferred through a secure peer-to-peer system. By doing so, the company lets individuals exercise their freedoms and rights as owners to safely and confidently participate in the emerging data economy.

"We stand at the epicenter of the bitcoin and blockchain industry, and we are excited to see the Bitmark team using this transformative technology to address fundamental questions about data ownership and monetization. Bitmark is the perfect addition to our global family of DCG companies and is developing an innovative solution to a problem that individuals, organizations, and institutions have been struggling to address," Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group said.