Sweetbridge Alliance Network, a global organisation driving liquidity and transparency for global supply chain networks through blockchain technologies has added InstaSupply.
The latter, known for digitizing and financing supply chains for mid-sized businesses, becomes an official reseller of Sweetbridge protocol technologies.
Lee Pruitt, CEO of InstaSupply, said: “Sweetbridge’s blockchain liquidity protocol enables us to offer the most competitive supply chain finance solution to SME businesses. This is a massive differentiator compared to traditional financial institutions and incumbent technologies, and is a game-changer for us and the suppliers we work with.
“Over the course of the past few months, I got to know the team at Sweetbridge extremely well and we discovered clear synergies for our technologies. Based upon our shared vision for faster, fairer and more liquid supply chains, we felt it made perfect sense to work together and form an alliance of this kind.”
Sweetbridge and InstaSupply
Through this collaboration, Sweetbridge’s liquidity protocol will provide low-cost access to capital for InstaSupply’s customer base. This comprises mid-sized businesses having annual revenues of US$30M to $2B with buyers and suppliers located around the world. As a reseller of the Sweetbridge Liquidity Protocol, InstaSupply will have the instant ability to settle supplier invoices. This enhances InstaSupply’s current offering.
The Sweetbridge Alliance is made up of businesses which use Sweetbridge protocols and technology, and integrate these to their own technological base. As Sweetbridge puts it “we aren’t interested in just building a user interface, what we really want to do is enable anyone to build their own products and applications that use our protocols to further develop the Sweetbridge Economic Game”.
InstaSupply will leverage the Sweetbridge Alliance Network’s blockchain technologies. This includes membership and support for:
- the Accord Project which provides programmatic legal contract functionality to support blockchain smart contracts
- Mattereum, a legal-technical interface for blockchain agreements and dispute resolution on the network.
The cloud-based InstaSupply service, which settles tens of millions a year in transactions, which in turn will offer participants access to improved:
- lower-cost capital
- financial terms
- responsiveness and functionality.
All three represent ‘upgrades’ to what is currently available for trade finance through traditional banking resources.
Scott Nelson, Chairman and Founder of Sweetbridge, said: “Given Lee’s impressive history in business supply chains and InstaSupply’s extensive network of business customers, Sweetbridge’s liquidity protocol was a logical fit for those organisations looking to be paid instantly on better terms.
“We are looking forward to finding a better way for these supply chain SMEs to transact, and more importantly, for delivering a business model for the future”.
Some background to Sweetbridge and InstaSupply
Sweetbridge set up its network to combine the power of blockchain technology with real-world value transfer with the objective of unlocking GDP growth. Anchored by a set of protocols, the Sweetbridge product stack addresses specific problems hampering commercial growth today:
- reconciling legal, accounting, payment and identity of all parties
- providing real-time audited financial results
- building a trusted network that is ‘in-sync’.
For example, if a network member is building an application to manage freight shipments, the Sweetbridge technology assists tracking goods and making services more efficient (and accurate). Alternatively, if a network member has developed an eWallet, it can:
- integrate the Sweetbridge protocols into that wallet
- then offer customers the added benefit of Sweetbridge rewards and Sweetbridge loans – enabled through the network member’s eWallet.
InstaSupply is a software company which digitises business supply chains for mid-market businesses worldwide. InstaSupply connects B2B supply chains together online in one place to provide:
- greater automation
- better business intelligence
- increased clarity to processes traditionally managed offline.
Enterprise Times: what does this mean
The ‘connection’ between supply chains and blockchain is becoming ever deeper. The logic for all participant is clearer and clearer. When all participants can see what is happening and can also displace all the paper, faxes and emails traditionally associated with supply chains and trade finance, the appeal can only grow.
What should be interesting about the Sweetbridge / InstaSupply tie up, beyond the supply chain/blockchain combination, is how this pair add a trade finance dimension. There will be many banks, addicted to the high margins (albeit with heavy resourcing costs) who may not appreciate the supply chain world infringing on ‘their space’ and revenues.
