Antony Abell’s new company is aiming to bring the power of blockchain technology to bear on everything from reassuring patients about the authenticity of medicine to speeding up property deals.

Any process that involves transferring ownership or control over assets could one day be fair game for Trustme, which wants to improve the efficiency and security of transactions by using blockchain — a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography — to replace traditional record-keeping with a tamper-proof digital ledger.

It sounds like an attractive concept, so why isn’t Mr Abell, 53, who has spent his career in the finance industry, knocking down the doors of venture capital houses demanding they back his new venture? He believes the blockchain