Established two years ago in Singapore, VeChain’s vision is to create greater market transparency and provide consumers with access to more detailed information about the products they buy, sell and interact with. By having a full 360 degree view of the supply chain, with all components securely recorded and stored in a tamper-proof distributed ledger, retailers and manufacturers can be certain of the quality and authenticity of their products, guaranteeing consumers that what they are buying is really what they think it is.
From recording the origins of the source materials or ingredients, servicing history or spare part replacements, through to the entire manufacturing process, all components are recorded, right up to who becomes the owner of the product and if it is sold, to whom.
To achieve its ambitious vision, VeChain has developed a powerful blockchain-enabled enterprise software platform. The VeChain platform enables manufacturers to assign products with unique identities, which then allow manufacturers, supply chain partners and even consumers to interact with the product through the platform. It uses blockchain technology to ensure the security of the data collected, allocating private keys to all participants within the supply chain.
A product on the VeChain platform is assigned a unique ID, which is stored simultaneously in the blockchain, and placed on the product with an NFC chip, RFID tag or QR code. At any point during the product’s life, the chip, tag or code can be interacted with, whether it’s a distribution or retail partner ascertaining batch membership, or a consumer learning more about a product’s provenance. The company envisages a broad range of applications, including brand protection, anti-counterfeit, and food safety.
In just two years, VeChain have already worked with a number of clients across various consumer product industries, including wine importing where Direct Imported Goods (DIG), China’s largest importer of fine wines, have placed one million bottles of wine on VeChain’s platform to counteract the huge issue of fake wine in the country, through to fashion and luxury accessories, food production and automotive supply chain management with Renault. The company has a number of partnership announcements in the pipeline.
Now a subsidiary of China’s biggest blockchain technology company, BitSE, VeChain became part of PwC’s incubation programme in May 2017, when BitSE and VeChain CEO, DJ Qian, went to Hong Kong to sign an agreement to boost VeChain’s deployment across South East Asia. With PwC’s resources and blockchain research at their disposal, this is a big opportunity for VeChain to realise their vision and accelerate the growth of a company with a promising future.