On 6th July 2017 the consortium of international leaders in logistics services, including SBSolutions — the developer of top ERP solutions, Formag (subsidiary of Global Transport Investment) and experts of a leading logistics services giant Hellman Worldwide Logistics, announce the first round of ICO International Multimodal Logistic Application (IMMLA) on the Etherium blockchain.
##International MultiModal Logistic Application##
The proceeds collected from the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) will be directed on the development and establishment of IMMLA — the first international multimodal logistics service with a decentralised system of transportation, document workflow and payments.
First round ICO will take place on 15th July 2017. During this round it is planned to raise $500,000 from interested investors through the sales of 10 million IML tokens that are emitted by the project. It will be followed by a second round ICO in the beginning of autumn 2017 with an aim to attract another $8.5 million.
It is expected that in 2018 the service will be launched in the international auto and sea freight forwarding market, in 2019–2020 it is anticipated to be in the CIS market, and in 2021 it is to enter the markets of Western Europe and China. Thus, 5 years after the launch of the IMMLA product it is estimated to occupy 1–2% of the world’s freight forwarding market.
IMMLA project mission is a simple, clear and convenient interaction between the owner of cargo and the transporter on all stages of the freight transport on the basis of Etherium blockchain and smart contracts. New technology allows to completely eliminate trust deficit, information barriers and legal costs. It brings the development of logistics technology to a whole new level as well as it means complete security and confidentiality throughout the whole supply chain.
Apart from this, the system will be using a Dutch auction model, which will allow to significantly decrease prices for logistics services.
The working method of the application will be based on complete openness and transparency on all stages of communication and interaction between a client and a contractor.
“Initially a client puts into the service the information about the necessity to deliver a specific cargo from one place to another at a specific time. Further, the platform through the use of statistical and forecast data provides the client with a price point for such service and an approximate delivery plan. If the client is satisfied with the basic conditions of the offer, then he places an order for a proposal formation”, -explains one of the founders of the project, Mikhail Astakhov.
The system, in turn, allocates the basic scheme of transportation among the registered participants, whose advertised and/or statistical profile allows them to take part in such transportation process. It also takes into account alternative delivery plans where it is possible to improve the price and/or time parameters.
“This will include both the professional freight forwards, who are able to carry out the service from start to end, as well as the monoliners, who can complete specific parts of the process, for example, 1) delivery from the warehouse to point A and delivery to the port A1 or A2; 2) freighting from port A1 to port B1/B2 and from port A2 to port B1/B2; 3) removal from port B1 and delivery to the warehouse C1 and etc. Thus, a breakdown of the transportation process takes place, which allows to offer the best price for each part of the itinerary”, — Mikhail Astakhov continues.
Auction will appear on the interface of registered transporters in the form of a constantly updated news feed that takes into consideration current routes/statistics/plans of the transporter. Pre-final offers are formed using the ascending price order, that is, from the lowest to the highest price. Hence, the client can choose the final offer using the following filters: price, reliability of the contractors (here price may be higher); speed of the delivery; balance among the different factors of the offer.
You can find further details in the White Paper of the project as well as on IMMLA social media pages — Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Medium, and also in a specialised discussion on Bitcointalk.org forum and our channel on Telegram.
Hellmann Worldwide Logistics — international logistics services company with headquarters in Osnabrück, Germany. Its annual turnover is €3.1 billion and annual shipment volume is more than 20 million. The company has 244 offices in 56 countries.
Formag Forwarding — is an international provider of transport/logistics services founded in Odessa in 1992. Today, the company is one of the leaders among the countries on the territory of Black Sea basin, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and countries of Central Asia.
Block chain — is a distributed database that is used to maintain a continuously growing list of records, called blocks. For the first time the term appeared as a name of a distributed database, which was implemented as a component of the cryptocurrency bitcoin. The main advantages of block chain are decentralization, transparency, openness, confidentiality, absence of mediators.
Smart contracts — are computer protocols intended to facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Implementation of smart contracts requires a decentralized environment that completely excludes human factor, and a cryptocurrency is necessary in order to be able to use the transfer of value in a smart contract.
ICO (Initial Coin Offering)— is a means of attracting investment for new technology projects and start-ups in the form of money creation and selling to the investors of new cryptocurrencies — tokens. It is one of the forms of crowdfunding.