Wecan Group, a Blockchain Venture Builder and WISeKey, a Leader in the Field of Cybersecurity, Blockchain and IoT, Announce Strategic Partnership

Wecan Group, a Blockchain Venture Builder and WISeKey, a Leader in the Field of Cybersecurity, Blockchain and IoT, Announce Strategic Partnership

ZUG, Switzerland – December 16, 2019 — Wisekey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey”, NASDAQ: WKEY, SIX: WIHN), a leading cybersecurity and IoT company, and Wecan Group, a Geneva based blockchain venture builder, announced a strategic partnership to join forces and resources in supporting several key blockchain related projects.

Wecan joins the Geneva Blockchain Center of Excellence

The Wecan Group will be joining the Geneva Blockchain Center of Excellence established by WISeKey in early 2019.  The business model of the Geneva Blockchain Center of Excellence is to assist blockchain startups and research to promote their technologies internationally, facilitate the rapid adaptation and on-boarding of blockchain-based solutions, foster stronger collaboration between the public, private and academic sectors and cooperate to ensure that the latest technological standards are made available in a safe and trusted manner. 
By making the most of the knowledge sharing, and available experiences & resources, the partnership will contribute to foster and accelerated adoption of blockchain technologies and increase the positive impact these technologies can have on businesses and institutions.

The Blockchain Center of Excellence is enabled by the OISTE/WISeKey’s neutral cryptographic Root Key and trust model.  OISTE foundation has partnered with international organizations, corporations and governments worldwide and its root certification and digital identities are recognized by leading Operating Systems and Internet Applications and integrates innovative blockchain technologies to distribute the identity attributes and build federated ecosystems. The purpose of the OISTE Trust Protocol is to establish a new Trust Protocol for the Internet combining traditional Cryptographic Trust Models with distributed blockchain ledgers creating a new Global Trust platform.
The mission of the Association is to create an ecosystem of governmental, technology and business partners, each representing a node with the possibility to have multiple nodes per country.

Carlos Moreno, WISeKey’s VP Corporate Alliances and Partnership noted: "We are excited about this partnership and proud to onboard WeCan Group as technological partner of the Blockchain Center Of Excellence to engage promoting best in class blockchain applications and platforms developed by WeCan secured by WISeKey, our trusted identities would be a critical factor when creating chronological, immutable records and where Know Your Customer ("KYC”) verification process plays an important role in the architecture of the solutions.   Combining the virtues of the Blockchain Application/Platform with WISeKey Digital Certificates can help customers guarantee the security and integrity of all transactions.”

Promoting common synergies and ambition

The objective of the WISeKey – Wecan Group partnership is to create synergies for the development of innovative solutions, by bringing their expertise on their respective technological layers.

Dr Vincent Pignon, CEO of Wecan Group concludes: "WISeKey has many assets in security and our venture builder strategy allows us to focus on the development of our joint ventures while pooling all support functions, but also strategic partnerships. Whether for identity or qualified signature, many applications are likely to benefit from this partnership.”

Wecan Group, through its two joint ventures, Wecan Tokenize (an asset tokenization platform) and Wecan Accelerate (a Libra acceleration program) empowers companies to grow with blockchain, provides capital and operational support to the companies that it partners with, and helps them establish defensible market-leading positions internationally.

In addition, Wecan Group’s two new joint ventures - Wecan Comply (a resource pooling platform for financial institutions) and Wecan Protect (a proof of ownership platform), are also expected to greatly benefit from this collaboration.  These two new joint ventures, together with several milestones of the Wisekey /BRI Blockchain Center of Excellence, will be presented to the public during the Geneva Annual Blockchain Congress Palexpo, to be held on January 20, 2020.

Wecan Comply enables banks and financial players to simplify compliance management by pooling resources, creating recognized standards and facilitating auditing and monitoring by regulators and is designed to increase compliance efficiencies. 

Wecan Protect which will be introduced and coordinated by Philippe Lucet, an intellectual property specialist, aims to facilitate the registration and protection of intellectual property of intangible assets worldwide.

***

About Wecan Group
Wecan Group empowers companies to grow with blockchain by supporting the launch, growth and scale of joint-venture by providing the «Wecan» brand and deep functional expertise, proprietary technology solutions and access to an extensive ecosystem of global partnerships.
Wecan Group co-create companies to leverage blockchain and address basic needs of both consumers and companies, and that achieve over time significant scale, high levels of profitability and market leading positions.

Wecan Group incubates, invests in and supports companies in the Blockchain sector worldwide and provides investors with a diversified exposure to the global Blockchain sector.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, Wecan Group has offices and extensive operational experience around the globe. The global network with teams in target markets worldwide having a deep local expertise (e.g. technologies) helps companies achieve economies of scale and synergies, thus reducing marginal costs for building new joint-venture.
For more information, visit www.wecangroup.ch.

About WISeKey
WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey Microprocessors Secures the pervasive computing shaping today’s Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.).  WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

Press contacts:

Wecan Group SA 
Company Contact:  Vincent Pignon
Chairman & CEO
Tel: +41 22 338 13 70
contact@wecangroup.ch

Disclaimer:
This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.