B2B eCommerce Firm Crowdz Plans Blockchain Platform

Crowdz, a U.S.-based B2B eCommerce firm, is aiming to deploy blockchain to facilitate digital commerce for its corporate clients.

The company said in a press release on Wednesday (Jan. 24) that it’s working with the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator program to launch its Smart Transaction Networks solution, a blockchain tool to help companies more efficiently sell online and transact. Crowdz is paying particular attention to B2B suppliers “that either have limited reach online or else haven’t fully entered the digital age,” the company’s announcement said.

“Throughout the world, business-to-business commerce remains in its infancy,” said Payson Johnston, CEO of Crowdz, in a statement. “Today, almost 90 percent of all B2B commerce in the United States still takes place in [a] highly manual fashion, such as via paper catalogs, telephone orders, fax, email, EDI and sales representatives.”

This means unnecessary costs and lost sales opportunities for B2B vendors, he added.

Crowdz aims to address those inefficiencies by using blockchain to end companies’ reliance on electronic data interchanges or other outdated technologies. Blockchain can support interconnected data sharing and management to automate transactions, the firm said.

“If Crowdz can help eliminate even a small percentage of these transactional inefficiencies by revolutionizing an antiquated business-commerce system, that represents billions of dollars in value for companies worldwide,” the CEO added. “We believe that this provides enormous growth opportunities for leading technology innovators like Crowdz.”

In another statement, Justin Smith, senior venture manager for Creative Destruction Labs’ Montreal unit, pointed to the potential for Crowdz’ blockchain solution to disrupt the broader data science field.

“We view technologies like Crowdz’ blockchain-based transaction networks as a key part of the future of data science,” he said. “Crowdz’ Smart Transaction Networks have the ability to create and capture billions of business-relevant data points in real time in ways that were never before possible. Thereafter, by using the unprecedented efficiencies of the blockchain, this data can be instantly employed to intelligently automate, accelerate and optimize transactions throughout the world.”