While LinkedIn is useful for showcasing people’s educational and professional accomplishments, there’s a world of self-taught tech talent whose skills aren’t as easily reflected on the networking site. Rather, their expertise is hidden in the lines of code they write.
Aspecta is trying to fill that gap by providing an AI-powered profiler for developers who want to create LinkedIn-like identity pages for themselves. This is done by using large language models to review code quality in the projects they contribute to. The platform also takes social endorsement into account and applies network analytics to see if a programmer’s work has been “liked” by other well-known experts.
The number of web developers3 has been emerging Despite the crypto winter, and naturally, Aspecta’s data reach extends into the world of blockchain. Its algorithms take cues from how users’ wallet addresses interact with smart contracts and tag their types of activity accordingly, which He says is an “easier” process than examining, say, GitHub data. because “on-chain data is more structured”. .”
Aspecta is currently integrated with GitHub, so when users sign in with their accounts on the code hosting site, they receive an automatically generated identity page with all their technical achievements that looks similar to a gamer’s trophy page. . The platform has also included Google, Stackoverflow, and MetaMask in its data sources and is in the process of incorporating Twitter.
Aspecta’s alpha release has attracted some 130,000 users to its waiting list. Investors have taken notice of its traction and today, the startup announced that it has closed a $3.5 million seed funding round that would enable it to launch the beta edition of its flagship digital identity product, Aspecta ID.
Leading institutional investors in the round included ZhenFund, a venture capital firm known for backing Chinese entrepreneurs expanding globally, as well as cryptocurrency-focused HashKey Capital and Foresight Ventures. The startup also attracted several strategic investors who would potentially take advantage of its identity service, including Galxe, Dorahacks, CyberConnect, Mask Network, and P12.
CAD Governance
Like many startups working in the digital identity space these days, Aspecta is drawn to web3’s decentralized governance mechanisms.
“Basically, we are creating an identity ecosystem and we don’t think it should be managed by a third-party corporation. Rather, it should be managed by a DAO,” he said. jack theAspecta co-founder, in an interview with TechCrunch.
A DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is run by rules encoded as a computer program controlled by members of the organization rather than a central party. DAO members hold tokens that allow them to vote on key decisions. The concept was all the rage during the crypto bull run, attracting artists, entrepreneurs and investors to start their DAOs, but many have lost steam since the market downturn.
Aspecta’s DAO has not yet been implemented. He reasoned that the talent insights discovered by the platform’s AI would eventually generate revenue, which would be better divided based on community rules. That is, he wants let your Users, or data providers, decide how their data is used by data consumers, the parties that make use of their digital footprint.
In addition to serving developers, the platform also targets organizations that can make use of digestible developer data through their “identity as a service.” Hackathons, for example, may find Aspecta useful, as its identification system can not only help register contestants, but also offer a look into the hackers’ competition. Or if a company is hiring developers, it could use Aspecta data to get a quick overview of candidates instead of going through your code line by line.
The next step for Aspecta is to target content creators who face the same dilemma as software developers: their achievements cannot be easily featured on existing professional networking sites. As such, the startup plans to apply its algorithms to examine the popularity of creators’ tweets or Youtube videos, as well as use graph learning algorithms to detect fake reviews.
“You can fake Twitter following, but you can’t fool Aspecta’s algorithm,” He said.