Saudi Aramco, Equinor invest in blockchain-as-a-service solution

Houston-based technology company Data Gumbo has completed a $6 million equity funding round for its blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform.

Data Gumbo said on Tuesday that the equity funding round was co-led by Saudi Aramco subsidiary Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and Equinor Technology Ventures, the venture subsidiary of Norway’s energy giant.

The new capital will be used to expand the company’s commercial blockchain network, in addition to growing the technical, sales and marketing teams at their Houston headquarters and office in Stavanger, Norway. This funding round brings Data Gumbo’s total funding to $9.3 million.

Andrew Bruce, CEO of Data Gumbo, said: “We enabled the first application of blockchain technology in the offshore drilling industry and will continue to break new ground with applications of BaaS to improve the bottom line of companies of all sizes. The partnership with Equinor and Saudi Aramco, and their associated supply chains and partnerships will provide the momentum for the Data Gumbo BaaS network to gain critical mass.”

The overarching problem that industrial companies have is that transactions resulting from measurements are interpreted differently by companies, their service providers and suppliers, be it weight, speed, height, connection, delivery time, volume, quality controls, or any other number of related contract terms, Data Gumbo says.

According to Data Gumbo, each company in the supply chain has different interpretations of the data, and when it comes to payments, filings and audits, there are significant delays and disputes.

Data Gumbo says its solution eliminates these differences in interpretation with its BaaS network and smart contract technology, facilitating automated calculation, reconciliation, and payment of invoice line items in near real-time with total transparency – driving reconciliation time between supply chain counterparts down to zero, among other benefits.

After removing disputes and enabling automated payment, the BaaS network records the result in an immutable record shared among all parties to the transaction.

The company claims that customers realize savings of 5-10 percent off the top on Data Gumbo-managed contracts from a combination of fewer disputed invoices, fast-pay discounts, and performance contracts.

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