Vakt, a company aiming to modernise commodity trading by blockchain, has announced it has received investment from three new strategic investors.

The company's blockchain-enabled platform aims to replace paper-based contracts, including letters of credit (L/Cs), invoices and other paperwork currently exchanged by email, fax or post.

New investors

The three new investors are Chevron, Total and Reliance Industries, who will also become early users of VAKT's platform.

Apart from the buyers and sellers, other service providers such as terminal or pipeline operators, port agents and inspection companies participate on the platform.

North Sea oil market

Launched in November 2018 for the North Sea crude oil market, the VAKT platform manages physical energy transactions from trade entry to final settlement, eliminating reconciliation and paper-based processes.

It provides a single source of data for buyers and sellers that is safeguarded with an immutable, distributed audit trail.

The platform promises major efficiency gains and cost savings for post-trade processing, including trade finance, and claims to be one of the world's first fully operational enterprise-grade blockchain solutions.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or Coastline Solutions.