By Cynthia Ezekwe
Chekkit, a Nigerian blockchain powered anti-counterfeiting solution for food and drug supply chain tracking, has secured additional funding from Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator, with participation from existing investors, to help scale its blockchain-powered drug safety and tracking solution.
Though the company did not disclose the funding value,it stated that it is a huge opportunity to scale its tech stack that provides manufacturers with serialisation and traceability of all packaging levels in line with global standards, as this came after Chekkit was officially announced as the first approved GS1/NAFDAC traceability solutions provider in Nigeria
The company disclosed that the raised funds will help Chekkit onboard more manufacturers across Nigeria and other regions in Africa, while also spreading its tentacles to new markets in India, UK and the Middle East with a target to become the lead traceability platform in Africa
Commenting on the additional funding, Vincent Li, founding partner at Adaverse, said Chekkit is not just another anti-counterfeiting solution, as it aims to repair the prevailing rift in consumer-manufacturer trust with the blockchain-secured channel,while prioritising consumer insights.
“We see the potential to transform the supply chain industry and disrupt the DataFi market and we’re excited to support the scaling of Chekkit’s infrastructure,’’ Li added.
On his part, Dare Odumade,Chekkit’s CEO said, “Since raising our pre-seed round of $500k in 2021, Chekkit has partnered and integrated its traceability and consumer intelligence solution with SAP, the global software giant enabling pharmaceutical brands that already use SAP’s Advanced track and trace platform to be able to collect and analyse last-mile patient data acquired via user surveys embedded in the GS1 serial codes, the unique identifiers used for product verification.”
Odumade noted that the company has integrated the GS1 global standards system, making its serialisation software regulatory compliant in over 100 countries globally, while stating that the company use blockchain for securing the unique identifiers it generate for products to prevent the duplication of serial codes and to also secure consumer personal data.
He further disclosed that in the near future, the company will deploy an open source web3 API giving access to an ecosystem of third party developers who wish to develop solutions that can leverage these drug/CPG product data for inventory, shopping, shipping, and payment solutions development.
“Funds will be used for scaling our team, tech and product distribution. We are expanding our team by hiring for more senior roles and launching in new countries like India and the UK. India because 70 per cent of drugs sold in the MENA region are imported from India, while the UK gives us access to the Eurozone which is also responsible for producing a good number of chronic medications shipped to Africa,’’ Odumade added.
