The open network for funding impact.

What we're building

Today every consumer app for funding impact rebuilds its own identity, its own evaluation history, its own reputation. Users get locked in. Apps duplicate work. The “impact domain” looks like a constellation of disconnected platforms, each with spreadsheets and PDFs as the actual persistence layer.

Certified collapses this. One identity per person or organisation. Records that move with them. AI as a first-class participant. Open lexicons that any app can publish under. The strategic move is to be the substrate, not the application — we win when consumer apps are using us, not when we're competing with them.

GitHub for impact

Think of GitHub. Individuals and organisations live on the same platform with the same URL shape. Every commit is signed and attributable. Repositories aggregate work. Stars and follows are portable. Whether you contribute to one project or thirty, your history compounds.

Certified does the same shape for funding-impact work. Activities become signed records. Projects aggregate contribution. Endorsements travel with the identity that signed them. The substrate accrues to the human or organisation that did the work — not to whichever app they used to log it.

Anatomy of a signed record

1. Person

   Has a DID and a PDS where their records live.

2. App

   Writes a record under its open lexicon: org.maearth.activity, org.bumicerts.cert, …

3. PDS

   Signs and stores the record. Records are CID-addressed and survive app shutdown.

4. Indexer

   Reads records across lexicons and aggregates them onto the substrate.

5. Profile

   Every record shows up at the user's /@handle — no matter which app produced it.

How the substrate works

1. One identity per DID.AT Protocol gives every account a decentralised identifier (DID). It's the protocol-level reference; your handle (@you.certified.app) is just a friendlier alias on top.
2. Records live on your PDS.Your Personal Data Server stores your signed records. You can self-host, use Certified's default, or migrate at any time. Records survive when apps come and go.
3. Apps publish under open lexicons. A lexicon is a public record schema (org.maearth.*, org.bumicerts.*). Anyone can read, anyone can write. Our indexer pulls them together onto your Certified profile.
4. Federation is the default.A record signed on Ma Earth shows up on your Certified profile, and your bumicerts profile, and any other app on the network that knows how to read its lexicon. No bilateral integrations needed.

Built on AT Protocol

AT Protocol is the open identity and data protocol behind Bluesky. It's where individuals own their handles, their data, and the relationships they build. Certified extends it for the funding-impact domain with new lexicons, indexers, and surface patterns — keeping the core open standards.

We're part of the broader AT-Proto ecosystem. Your Bluesky identity works on Certified. Records you sign on Certified are readable by any AT-Proto application that understands the lexicons. We don't fork the protocol; we build on it.

Who operates Certified

The Hypercerts Foundation, a Delaware nonstock corporation, operates the Certified service. We develop open infrastructure for the hypercerts ecosystem and maintain the Certified identity platform as part of that mandate. All code is open-source; all schemas are open lexicons; the substrate doesn't depend on us continuing to exist.