User Review
( votes)Indiana-based startup Simba Chain recently announced a five-year Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract with US Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center in San Diego to provide a blockchain-based messaging and transaction platform. Following up on the announcement, MSDW spoke with Simba Chain CEO Joel Neidig about what the contract means for the company, the role of Microsoft Azure for blockchain projects, and the state of the blockchain market today.
Four years of rapid blockchain growth
Neidig founded Simba Chain at the end of 2017, building off of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded research at University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana. In 2016, Neidig and his co-founder found it difficult to build blockchain applications and set out to create a low-code and no-code option built on Azure Blockchain as a Service. The company’s name is short for “simple blockchain implementation.”
With its origins in US Department of Defense funding, Simba Chain’s technology was quickly adopted by the US Air Force and Boeing for high-value asset tracking, particularly things like aircraft components and engines. The new implementation with the Navy will also focus on asset tracking for ship propulsion systems.
The Simba Chain team had to move quickly to integrate with SAP and product lifecycle management systems in use in the defense sector. However, Simba Chain is also making its offering available through Azure Marketplace beyond the defense sector, with adoption by Dow Chemical to help with audit trails for its complex supply chain.
Simba Chain has become a part of Microsoft for Startups and relies on Azure infrastructure.
