SAP Ariba, the US software and IT firm owned by tech giant SAP, has integrated its services with blockchain startup Everledger.
Announced today, the move will see SAP Ariba deploy the tech for use in supply chain applications, one of the services the company provides. According to SAP Ariba, more than 2.5m companies utilize its offerings. Everledger, based in London, uses blockchain to track the provenance of diamonds and other assets.
SAP Ariba said that it is also joining the Linux Foundation-backed Hyperledger blockchain community.
Joe Fox, SAP Ariba’s senior vice president for business development and strategy, said in a statement:
“Twenty years ago, SAP Ariba bet big on a fringe technology called the Internet and pioneered a totally new model for buying and selling. True to our roots, we are again investing at the edge of technology to drive innovations in business-to-business collaboration that will change the game.”
Though the tech likely won’t apply to the precious stones space in the case of SAP Ariba, Fox suggested that the application opens the door to other tracking-related uses.
“If you can track and trace diamonds, you can track and trace anything,” he said.
Originally known simply as Ariba, the company was acquired by tech giant SAP in 2012 for more than $4bn. SAP has partnered with firms like Ripple to explore the tech, telling CoinDesk last year that supply chain management was among the use cases it is testing.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership take in Everledger.
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