Nuco, a Deloitte-born company, and Terepac work together to integrate IoT and blockchain to track IoT devices throughout their lifecycle

Distributed ledger startup Nuco has signed its first formal partnership since spinning out from Deloitte’s financial technology team earlier this year.

Nuco’s partnership with Terepac Corporation has created what the two companies call the ‘Terepac Blockchain’, a distributed ledger designed to enable manufacturers to track their products throughout their lifecycle as part of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT).

Meanwhile, Nuco will continue to pursue their original goal of creating products that make it easier to build industry-wide blockchain consortiums, and their partnership with Terepac is the first demonstration of what this effort can ultimately achieve.

Nuco co-founder Kesem Frank told CoinDesk:

“The Internet of Things is actually a good example of this because it’s not so much about transaction speed, it’s more about transaction volume. If you’re going to really build a platform based on different skills, you need to apply different thinking to the system level.”

By tailoring different capabilities based on enterprise and industry-wide needs, Nuco believes this can further optimize the benefits of distributed ledgers.

Kesem Frank, co-founder of Nuco

In this first partnership, Terepac describes its blockchain as an “immutable, tamper-proof record of all device interactions.” The blockchain is designed to record data about the past and present state of specific objects (a wide range of products).

Nuco was founded in 2016 and was originally part of Deloitte’s Rubix blockchain product, but was spun off from Deloitte in order to expand operations more quickly.

Blockchain and IoT

But beyond being part of a development, the collaboration is also the latest sign that the IoT industry is beginning to explore blockchain more seriously.

For example, a report released by Cisco in June predicted that the number of machine-to-machine (M2M) connections in the Internet of Things will increase from 4.9 billion in 2015 to 12.2 billion in 2020, accounting for nearly half (46%) of all connected devices.

To provide increased customer service to owners and manufacturers of these devices, Terepac Corporation was founded in 2005. According to Terepac founder and CEO Ric Asselstine, as more attention has been paid to blockchain technology, the potential services the company offers have also changed.

Asselstine told CoinDesk that it was initially intended to create a more efficient way for device makers to service their wares, even if they were purchased a long time ago.

But with their partnership with Nuco, Asselstine's vision has changed.

Ric Asselstine, Founder and CEO of Terepac

Asselstine said:

“We don’t know all the relationships or value that can be formed by deploying blockchain technology. I don’t initially foresee this as an opportunity to become a charismatic leader in this industry, but the potential for Terepac Blockchain is definitely there.”

For more information, please see the special topic "Blockchain and Internet of Things"