Andrian Galkin doesn’t think he can dislodge Amazon, Alibaba or the other online retail giants. But the 25-year-old, Ukraine-born serial entrepreneur believes Storiqa, the ethereum (ETH)-based company he founded with partners Ruslan Tugushev and Evgeny Gavrilin, can ensure the integrity of transactions, speed payments and address other e-commerce flaws.

In little more than a year, Storiqa has drawn notice from investors and observers of the retail industry. It completed a $25 million ICO, issuing its STQ (STQ) tokens earlier this year, and will launch a platform in June. It has offices in Northern California, Russia and Singapore. The company name is shorthand for “store with quality assurance,” Galkin, the COO, told ThirtyK. “We are trying to take e-commerce to a higher level.”

ThirtyK: How did the three co-founders come together and create Storiqa?

Galkin: I’m a serial entrepreneur. Ruslan is a serial entrepreneur. They had their issues and I had my issues.

ThirtyK: What were those issues?

Galkin: Ruslan and Evgeny started the company Boomstarter, (which) became popular in Eastern Europe. They ran that business successfully. Then their customers said, “We appreciate the things you’ve done but we have other problems.” They did not know how to continue their growth internationally.

“We raised $25 million from the token sale,” says Galkin. “Amazon has a capitalization of $160 billion. Twenty-five million is peanuts compared to them. We know our place.”

ThirtyK: These were small retailers?

Galkin: Small businesses. I used to produce cool desks. The company was called Stakdesk. A couple of times a customer said, “I’m sorry, the table you sent is missing a part. I thought, “That’s interesting because it was me who inspected the package. I knew that it was the customer who took some part. On the other side I couldn’t prove it. I had a friend who used to order things via eBay, and every time he was not satisfied he only got eBay rewards. I figured there are issues for the seller and buyer.

ThirtyK: Is what you quickly focused on the issue of trust?

Galkin: We wanted to build trust between seller and buyer.

Quality Assurance

ThirtyK: Storiqa as a store with quality assurance sounds like an apt description.

Galkin: We have taken to building a Storiqa standard [under] which the sale and purchase of products will meet quality standards. Blockchain helps you figure out what is fake and what is not. If you are fake, you are not listed on our platform. Blockchain gives each transaction real transparency. We are based on ethereum ERC 20. If you want to forge that, then you need to hack the whole ethereum system. We’re working with our partners on developing our own blockchain, but that will take time.

ThirtyK: This extends to product reviews.

Galkin: I’m speaking (at a conference) about blockchain and how it could impact e-commerce before 2,000 people. This guy says, “When I was a student, I used to get paid for writing reviews for products I never touched.” The problem is that people are reading and trusting those reviews.