Overstock's Medici Land Governance Inks Deal for Local Land Registry in Mexico

Medici Land Governance, a subsidiary of Overstock's venture arm Medici Ventures, has signed a memorandum of understanding with a local government in Mexico to create a digital land records system.

According to Monday's announcement, the memorandum of understanding was struck with the municipal government of Tulum, which is located in the state of Quintana Roo. If built, the deal will allow officials there to collect data about land ownership and issue certificates of title to land in an effort to record such transactions automatically.

"Mexico's adoption of advanced technology in their land registry will increase opportunities for individuals to strengthen their connections to the global economy through rightful ownership of land," Ali El Husseini, Medici Land Governance's CEO, said in a statement.

Víctor Mas Tah, mayor of the municipality of Tulum, said that the deal "represents the beginning of a new territorial ordering stage for the digitalization of land ownership and related processes."

Medici Land governance secured its first partnerships with two state governments in Africa: last August, the startup signed a memorandum of understanding with the secretary for the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources in Zambia to create a blockchain-based land title registry. In November, the company secured a similar deal with the government of Rwanda.

In December, Medici Land Governance found its first partner on the U.S. soil: Teton County in Wyoming, which hired the startup to build a new land registry using the Open Index Protocol (OIP) and Florincoin blockchain.

Tulum beach Quintana Roo México image via Shutterstock