Startup World Cup is organized by Pegasus Tech Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with $2 billion in assets under management. It runs more than 100 regional competitions across six continents, with each regional winner earning a spot at the Grand Finale in San Francisco in November to compete for a $1 million investment prize.
Indicio’s selection comes after its recent partnership announcement with IDEMIA Public Security and their joint launch of globally interoperable Verifiable Credentials for KYC in financial services at this year’s RSA conference. Indicio has also just launched Indicio Proven AI for KYC, which enables AI agents to authenticate customers using digital KYC credentials.
Indicio is at the leading edge of decentralized identity, combining document validation and biometric authentication from partners IDEMIA Public Security and Regula with Indicio’s globally interoperable Verifiable Credential platform, Indicio Proven®. Portable, privacy-preserving Verifiable Credentials held in digital wallets completely transform identity authentication, compliance, and security against identity fraud and deepfakes.
The Indicio Proven decentralized identity platform is interoperable with existing systems and supporting multiple credential formats and protocols, including W3C Verifiable Credentials, SD-JWT, and ISO 18013-5 and 1803-7 mobile driver’s licenses, and is already deployed with enterprise and government partners globally.
“Decentralized identity is a transformative technology that affects every country, sector, person — and non human,” said Heather Dahl, CEO, Indicio, “It removes the many vulnerabilities in legacy technology that have accelerated identity fraud. It provides a simple, powerful way to bypass deepfakes and also a way to implement AI systems so that they can be trusted with our most valuable data. The applications are vast and urgent and exciting, and Indicio is the pioneer in this technology. We can’t wait to showcase how we’re changing the world at East Meets West.”
East Meets West is Hawaiʻi’s largest tech conference and serves as a strategic bridge between Asian and U.S. innovation ecosystems. Renowned venture capitalist Tim Draper will speak at the event, and Meet the Drapers — the global startup television series reaching millions of viewers worldwide — will film live, bringing additional international visibility to selected companies.
Want to see us pitch? Join us in Honolulu, April 8–9. You can grab tickets to East Meets West 2026 at a 25% discount with code EMWPROMO. And if you’re ready to see what Indicio Proven can do for your organization, get in touch — we’d love to talk.