Viant, a ConsenSys company, is a next-generation blockchain-based platform for modeling business processes, tracking assets and building transparent flexible supply chains of the future. The platform leverages cryptographic security, and smart contracts to provide organizations verifiable insights as assets are managed and propagated throughout their entire supply chain. Viant was built based on prior experience creating bespoke blockchain solutions in healthcare, oil & gas, and real estate industries. Viant was built ground up to be a highly configurable industry-and domain-agnostic platform.

After a year in stealth, Viant is proud to share a select group of disruptive industry leaders participating in a select beta program launched in the third quarter of 2017. Over the past quarter, these companies have been modeling processes and assets on Viant to improve transparency, better comply with regulations, and unlock business value. The beta participants and cloud provider are:

GlaxoSmithKline: Working within the license constraints of technology in the pharma industry creates risk for companies. Blockchain technology has the potential to provide transparency in the freedom to operate of these licenses globally, ensuring that scientific discoveries are underpinned by the appropriate usage of these technologies. Without correctly tracking the licenses used by scientists there is a massive opportunity for the misuse of a license which can result in fines and reputation damage.

“Blockchain offers a powerful new approach to asset tracking which could prove to be a valuable tool in managing our vast data networks and improving the efficiency of our R&D operations,” said Mark Buswell, Vice President of Technology for Discovery, Development and Lab Systems at GSK. “Working with ConsenSys on the Viant Beta program allowed us understand what it could mean to implement Blockchain internally and the feedback we are getting from our scientists is, ‘We want more.’”

Imaginea: Creating a production process that demonstrates to consumers the probability of zero carbon emissions fuel can allow consumers to actively purchase their preferred energy. Responsible production of fossil fuels is needed until renewables become a full viable alternate.

Microsoft: An early champion of Viant, has collaborated in the usage of Azure technologies and the Azure BizSpark program. This provided a familiar production grade onramp for the Beta participants to gain access to the Viant platform.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF): Consumers and governments alike are demanding that fish be sourced sustainably. Tracking a catch from boat to plate allows all parties to verify a catch and to know what they are consuming is as advertised. A consumer-driven market is demanding proof of provenance of their seafood.

“Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the seafood industry through a transparent, decentralized, efficient, and secure tool,” said Bubba Cook, WWF Western Central Pacific Tuna Program Manager. “Consumers are increasingly calling for fully-traceable seafood that does not come from illegal fisheries or those that engage in human rights abuses. Wholesale and retail seafood buyers are asking for improvements in transparency and traceability to reduce the risk of their brands being associated with dubious and illegal activities. Layered into the real-time information coming from other electronic technology platforms, blockchains can provide unprecedented supply chain transparency and traceability that retailers and consumers want.”

Oil and gas supermajor: This use case involves moving the current legacy crude oil nomination process to a blockchain based system. Currently the nomination process involves multi-participant market coordination and real-time tracking leading to reconciliation and tracking challenges.

The select beta program was designed to enable the world’s leading innovators to rapidly model and realize their most compelling blockchain use-cases on the platform. This first cohort of the Beta program participants was selected based on the vision, applicability, and maturity of their target use-cases and to include varied industries and domains. The program provided each participant a dedicated instance of the platform deployed on Microsoft Azure, managed by the Viant team. The participants were on-boarded to the program with a kick off to ideate use cases, provide basic guidance on modeling and building with the tool. Through the beta program, the participants collaborated with the Viant team to identify and prioritize feature requests to further their blockchain use cases.