Supply chain payments company Tradeshift has always aimed to help businesses get paid faster. Today, it’s doubling down on that mission by partnering with MakerDAO to leverage the blockchain to speed up payments.
MakerDAO is the creator of Dai, a decentralized stablecoin based on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as the Dai Credit System. Through the partnership, Tradeshift will leverage MakerDAO’s credit system to create a supply chain liquidity marketplace. The marketplace aims to serve businesses, which can leverage transactions and digital assets on the Tradeshift platform to create short-term financing models; developers, who can build apps for investors; and investors, who benefit the tokenization of assets such as invoices made available on new financial apps.
As Tradeshift Co-Founder Gert Sylvest described, it was previously difficult for trade receivables to leverage the blockchain, since the market has tight margins that do not allow for the volatile fluctuations that come with settlement in digital currencies. The difference in the Dai Credit System, Sylvest explained, is that it is “a transparent and stable token that allows anyone to represent real-world currency settlements on the blockchain.”
The Dai maintains stability because it is an open smart contract platform that allows anyone to issue Dai against their assets, which are held as collateral. When users want to retrieve their collateral, they return the Dai currency they issued, plus a fee based on how much time they used it for. This removes the need for users to blindly trust a third party. MakerDAO’s video explains a bit more in-depth:
Rune Christensen, CEO of MakerDAO said that this partnership “proves the potential of the blockchain to level the economic playing field for businesses of all sizes around the globe.” He added that the collaboration offers “new options for investors by creating an entirely new class of investment vehicles with vetted risk, based on real world assets.”
Founded in 2010, Tradeshift helps business’ buyers and suppliers digitize and collaborate on their transactions using any supply chain app. At FinovateEurope 2012, Tradeshift demoed Instant Payments, which allows small businesses to receive payments instantly on the Tradeshift platform in exchange for a small interest rate.
The company’s business commerce platform connects more than 1.5 million companies across 190 countries. To date, the California-based company has processed more than half a trillion dollars in transaction value. Tradeshift has raised $432 million, including its most recent $250 million round from Goldman Sachs this spring which vaulted the company’s valuation up to $1.1 billion.