European supply chain management startup OriginTrail has raised $22.5 million in an initial coin offering to build out a custom blockchain-based platform for global supply chain tracking.

The company was founded in 2013 and brought an app to market that allowed consumers to track the entire supply chain of their product before they purchase it, but with the new blockchain-based platform, OriginTrail intends to take that tracking ability global.

The platform, already under development, aims to deliver a decentralized data exchange for every organization. The idea is to enable mass adoption to increase trust and efficiencies within the supply chain on a global scale, including preventing problems exacerbated by an opaque supply chain, such as food safety violations, counterfeits and sweatshops. It’s built as an off-chain network that can combine supply chain data from different information technology systems.

The full development of the blockchain platform has a three-year roadmap, but a prototype build of the platform is already being piloted by a Chinese online farmers market called Yimishiji as part of the Bits x Bites food tech accelerator program.

“As China’s first food tech accelerator VC, we set out to support startups that share our mission—to advance technology solutions to shape the future of good food,” Matilda Ho, founder and managing director of Bits x Bites, said in a statement.

Global food supply chain management is a massive business. Global food exports alone total $1.3 trillion, with the overall global food and agricultural industry grossing $8 trillion a year. All that food needs to be tracked somehow, so even a small slice of the global food supply chain management market could be a significant business.

Photo: Graham Richardson/Wikimedia Commons