Abu Dhabi-based Addenda is leveraging blockchain technology to combine insurance companies (motor insurance industry) in the Middle East to a trust-based network operating on local Azure datacenters. The SaaS platform issued via Microsoft Azure Marketplace is transforming the way insurers transact and communicate, thereby lowering down claims reconciliation time from 6 months to 9 days.

“We wanted to deploy a decentralized blockchain platform where every single company has a node. But it was going to cost us an insane amount of money,” says Walid Daniel Dib, CEO, Addenda in a statement.

The company implemented it to Microsoft for its Startups program, which offered the technical support, strategic advice, and credit package required to secure the launch phase.

“We were then able to land our first client and investor, and it took off from there. We’ve now signed one of the biggest insurers in the Middle East, bringing the total number of insurance companies on the Addenda blockchain to nine,” stated Dib in a statement.

The startup also took benefit of a lately established local Azure cloud datacenter to assure the scale, compliance, reliability, and security its software as a solution (SaaS) needed. Addenda coupled up with Microsoft for Startups again to use the blockchain platform on Azure Marketplace.

“Now, an insurance company clicks a few buttons on the marketplace, and Voila! They’re deployed and can reconcile with all other companies on the blockchain using our portal,” explains Karim Davis Dib, COO, Addenda in a statement.

“Security is paramount for a solution addressing an industry processing ultra-sensitive data,” states Harsh Ajmera, CTO, Addenda in a statement. “We don’t want anybody reaching out to the blocks, and we needed something up and running 99 percent of the time. Therefore, we started using private Azure DNS zones. It’s running on the cloud, and nobody can access it,” he added.

In 3 months, the number of claims processed by Addenda’s platform grew from 0 to 23 million dirhams (6 million USD) and is stated to be expanding exponentially. “There are about 1.6 billion dirhams (435 million USD) in the UAE stuck in the recovery of motor insurance claims,” says Walid Dib in a statement. The company intends to encourage more insurers in reclaiming that money, with ideas to cover travel and healthcare markets, in the country, and abroad. It plans to use Azure AI and ML services to detect false claims and benefit its consumers further.