Highlights:

  • Due to its ability to track components, elements, or items in a supply chain throughout its existence in an easily auditable manner that helps eliminate errors, blockchain technology is frequently utilized for supply chain management.
  • The blockchain’s distributed ledger is cryptographically protected. Each time a portion or component is received, accessed, dropped off, or has its status changed in any other way, that change is recorded.

Simba Chain, a provider of blockchain solutions, recently announced that it had been chosen by the U.S. Air Force Strategic Technology Focus Initiative to acquire USD 30 million in funding. This comes after the firm completed several projects for the military in recent years.

The initiative aims to find technologies to secure the dominance of its military in the U.S. This investment in Simba Chain shows an ongoing increase in funding towards applying blockchain technology.

The USAF will use Simba Chain’s technology to develop and deploy blockchain applications for supply chain management.

Simba Chain’s vice president of government operations, Stacy Betlej-Amodeo, said, “Our new project for the USAF will pave the way to more efficient and comprehensive management of assets within the Department of Defense supply chain.” She added that Simba would “build upon our existing partnership with the DoD to scale blockchain technology across the enterprise.

Due to its ability to track components, elements, or items in a supply chain throughout its existence in an easily auditable manner that helps eliminate errors, blockchain technology is frequently utilized for supply chain management.

The blockchain’s distributed ledger is cryptographically protected. Each time a portion or component is received, accessed, dropped off, or has its status changed in any other way, that change is recorded. Blockchain technology can also provide a tamper-resistant data platform to keep the data safe while only disclosing the information necessary to follow the part’s progress.

Simba Chain collaborated with the USAF on earlier initiatives to develop budget tokenization to improve accounting. Additionally, the business created an experimental blockchain-based supply chain monitoring system in 2018 for the Naval Air Systems Command, which supplies the U.S. Navy’s planes with material support.

The U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines, as well as aviation manufacturing major Boeing Co. and many other businesses, use the company’s technology for various commercial applications.

Simba Chain Chief Executive Bryan Ritchie said, “Through STRATFI our government partners are sending a strong demand signal for blockchain technology. Given the interconnectedness of the DoD supply chain, it also signals an opportunity to collaborate and increase adoption within the commercial industry.”

Simba Chain raised USD 25 million in Series A financing in 2021, which it utilized to continue developing its blockchain platform and add new features like support for nonfungible tokens for anti-counterfeiting and other upcoming applications. Valley Capital Partners sponsored the financing.

The application of blockchain technology in supply chain tracking has been explored in several industries. These include the automotive industry (where BMW and PartChain developed a partnership), mining (with Open Mineral), tracking diamonds (where De Beers adopted the technology), and food supply chains (where IBM’s Food Trust Network was established).