Factom’s DHS Blockchain Prototype Awards

In June 2016, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate awarded nearly $200,000 to Austin-based company Factom to explore whether blockchain could help protect the integrity of data captured by border devices. The award was framed as an early-stage effort rather than a large operational deployment.

Over the next three years, Factom received three additional awards through the Science and Technology Directorate’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program, bringing the total to $788,652 across four phases. These awards funded blockchain based tools for authenticating Internet of Things devices, anchoring evidence from border sensors, and securing data related to raw material imports.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Program, which the Science and Technology Directorate describes on its program page, is structured to engage startups on specific mission needs. It uses staged prototype awards instead of traditional large contracts.

Factom’s sequence of awards illustrates how this model treats blockchain as one of several candidate technologies for data integrity in homeland security operations.

Executive Summary

Four DHS S&T awards to Factom from 2016 to 2019 totaled $788,652
Projects moved from IoT device integrity proofs to CBP field testing and supply chain data
At least one later phase used an Other Transaction Agreement for flexible prototyping
A 2020 DHS plug fest tested cross vendor blockchain interoperability standards
In 2021 Factom’s technology and key personnel moved to Inveniam, rebranding the protocol as Accumulate

Early Phase Development

In a 2016 news release, the Science and Technology Directorate reported a $199,000 award to Factom under an Other Transaction Solicitation for securing IoT systems. The project aimed to authenticate devices and preserve the integrity of data from cameras and sensors by recording evidence of their activity into a blockchain ledger.

IoT devices are embedded within our daily lives – from the vehicle we drive to devices we wear – it’s critical to safeguard these devices from adversaries. S&T is excited to engage our nation’s innovators, helping us to develop novel solutions for the Homeland Security Enterprise.

The same 2016 announcement quoted Silicon Valley Innovation Program leadership describing a strategy of drawing on existing commercial work. They noted that startups were already developing IoT security products and that adapting these tools for homeland security missions could give the department earlier access to relevant technology.

From the outset, Factom’s work fit a pattern that later phases would continue. Rather than storing sensitive border data directly on a blockchain, the company focused on creating cryptographic fingerprints, also known as integrity proofs, that could later verify whether off chain data had been altered.

Prototype Advancement

In February 2017, a second award advanced the project from concept to a pilot ready prototype. The Science and Technology Directorate’s 2017 announcement on Phase 2 research reported that Factom received $199,980 as part of nearly $1 million in awards to five startups.

I am proud of the success of this program. We have made it easier for start-ups to better understand the DHS mission and challenges so DHS S&T can benefit from the talent and creativity of the innovation community.

By this stage, the technical focus was on authenticating IoT devices and hashing their data into Factom’s ledger so that later checks could reveal tampering. The second phase translated the initial integrity concept into software that could be prepared for use in an operational pilot environment.

This progression from basic research to pilot ready tools reflects how the Silicon Valley Innovation Program uses staged funding. Each phase is designed to show specific technical and operational milestones before the work moves closer to field testing.

Field Testing Deployment

In June 2018, the Science and Technology Directorate announced a $192,380 award to Factom for Phase IV work on a blockchain software plug in with Customs and Border Protection. The 2018 release on blockchain technology described this phase as deploying the software in a realistic field environment.

The early phases of Factom’s work has informed architecture choices and design decisions inherent in integrating blockchain with existing technologies. In Phase IV, Factom will deploy this technology in a realistic field environment with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to understand its operational impacts.

Contract tracking records for Other Transaction Agreement HSHQDC16900007, which are summarized by sites such as GovTribe, list this award as a Phase IV field testing effort. These records align with the Science and Technology Directorate’s description of deploying a plug in to understand operational effects in Customs and Border Protection settings.

Together, the 2016, 2017, and 2018 awards outline a path from initial IoT integrity concept to field deployment. The focus remains consistent across phases: generate verifiable evidence of what devices recorded, while keeping underlying border data in existing agency systems.

Anti-Forgery Applications

In November 2019, the Science and Technology Directorate opened a new line of work with Factom that shifted from device integrity to trade data. A 2019 announcement on tracking raw material imports reported a $197,292 award under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program for a Phase 1 project.

The project was described as applying cross blockchain technology to help prevent forgeries or counterfeiting of certificates and licenses used in raw material imports. Instead of focusing on sensor feeds alone, this phase looked at how to use cryptographic proofs and digital credentials to trace documents that support supply chain security.

Data-centric blockchains that can work with any type of data are useful in enterprise contexts such as those of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for understanding the origin of raw material imports.

The same 2019 release noted that Factom would adapt its Harmony products to support emerging World Wide Web Consortium standards, including decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials. Those standards aim to let different systems check the authenticity of digital documents without depending on a single vendor stack.

This new award reused the integrity proof pattern from earlier phases but applied it to trade certificates instead of only to IoT sensor streams. It also linked the work to global interoperability efforts rather than a solution built only for domestic use.

Interoperability Demonstration

By 2020, the Silicon Valley Innovation Program used Factom’s work as one element in a broader push for interoperable blockchain based credentialing. A Science and Technology Directorate feature on blockchain interoperability describes a May 2020 plug fest that brought together Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade and several vendors, including Factom, Mavennet, and Transmute.

In that account, the plug fest served to test whether products from different companies could exchange verifiable credentials that support supply chain security. The event treated interoperability as a requirement for any future operational deployment rather than a secondary feature.

SVIP, thru its investments, is motivating and shaping product development of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to ensure that a foundation of security, privacy, and interoperability exists when those capabilities are deployed to meet DHS’s unique specifications and needs.

The same feature article explained that the department sources technology from the private sector and that maintaining a competitive ecosystem is important to avoid vendor or technology lock in. Factom’s participation in the plug fest placed its tools in direct comparison with other blockchain based credential systems.

Viewed together with the 2019 anti forgery award, the 2020 interoperability work shows how a small set of prototype contracts can influence standards discussions as much as individual product deployments. The Science and Technology Directorate positioned its investments as a way to shape secure and privacy aware options before they are widely adopted.

Beyond DHS: Energy Trials and Corporate Transition

Separate from the Department of Homeland Security work, a 2019 CoinDesk report described a Department of Energy Phase I award (about $200,000) to TFA Labs to test whether the Factom protocol could help secure power-grid / IoT device data, with the possibility of a larger follow-on phase.

In that account, Factom’s role is framed as providing an open-source protocol used in the pilot rather than as the named federal awardee. The reporting reviewed here does not cite a DOE press release or award notice that names Factom directly; the public trail runs primarily through secondary coverage and TFA Labs’ own descriptions of the project.

TFA Labs was led by Dennis Bunfield (also a core contributor to the Accumulate ecosystem), which helps explain why the work is often discussed in “Factom-adjacent” terms even when the award is attributed to TFA Labs. This contrasts with the DHS case, where Science and Technology Directorate materials describe Factom’s role directly.

Factom’s corporate trajectory shifted in 2021. According to a 2021 announcement hosted by Accumulate Network, Inveniam Capital Partners acquired Factom Inc., including blockchain related patents and key personnel such as chief scientist Paul Snow.

The same announcement presents Accumulate as a successor protocol that incorporates Factom’s technology into a new architecture focused on digital identity and data integrity use cases. It describes Inveniam’s plans to use Factom’s intellectual property across its broader data and valuation platforms.

Across the sources reviewed here, no primary agency documents were found showing Accumulate or Inveniam as awardees for Department of Homeland Security or Department of Energy programs in the same way Factom is documented during the 2016–2019 SVIP period. As a result, the agency-facing record that can be traced most directly through primary sources centers on Factom.

Factom’s sequence of federal engagements shows how relatively small, roughly $200,000 scale awards can carry a technology from concept to field test and into standards discussions without turning into large production contracts. Its legacy inside government records is a set of targeted prototypes for data integrity, while its technical lineage continues in the private sector through Inveniam and Accumulate.