Covantis, the blockchain consortium started by the world’s biggest agribusiness companies, has incorporated in Geneva Switzerland and appointed a CEO. The company is owned by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Louis Dreyfus Company, and Glencore Agriculture. The new CEO is Petya Sechanova, who has been with Cargill in Geneva for more than ten years as Trade Execution team leader.
Additionally, regulatory approval for Covantis has also been granted. It’s not a huge surprise that the company has incorporated in Geneva, given the concentration of commodities firms in the region. Commodity trade finance startup komgo is also Geneva-based.
A six-person board of directors will have a representative from each of the founding firms. The initial Chair of the board will be from Louis Dreyfus for the first 12 months, after which the role will rotate amongst the founding members.
“This paves the way toward launching the first release of our industry-changing digital solution, focusing initially on grains and oilseeds post-trade execution processes,” said Sechanova.
“In conversations with stakeholders around the world and up and down the value chain, we’ve heard time and again how critical it is for our entire industry to modernize our outdated global grain trading operations.”
Despite being led by the largest industry players, the group has been careful to emphasize that the platform will also cater for small participants as well.
It recently announced that the technology to be used is JP Morgan’s enterprise blockchain Quorum and the technology partner is ConsenSys.
| Company | 2017 Revenue | 2018 People |
| ADM | $60.8 billion | 31,300 |
| Bunge | $45.8 billion | 31,000 |
| Cargill | $114.7 billion | 155,000 |
| LDC | $18.8 billion | 18,000 |
| COFCO | $34 billion | 11,000 |
| Glencore Agriculture | $12.6 billion | 13,000 |
