In today’s episode of the ‘Start-up of the Week’, International Finance will talk about Verofax, which is known for its compliance and commerce SaaS solutions in the Middle East region. The venture has also recently been selected among the top ‘Future50 Climate Tech Start-ups’ by PwC Middle East.
However, the thing which separates Verofax from its rivals stems from the fact that ‘Climate Tech’ is one of the industry verticals, where the start-up is steadily muscling up its business presence.
What Verofax Exactly Do?
The UAE-based business, whose SaaS solutions have been validated by tech giants like Microsoft, IBM, AWS and Ant Group, also holds PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) patents on their innovations in the fields of digital passporting, computer vision and AI analytics, with the ultimate aim of making industrial supply chains and operations intelligent. Verofax, which is committed to achieving ‘Net Zero‘ by 2025, also helps its client businesses by creating personalised experiences. These ‘experiences’ help businesses to engage customers by turning physical products into interactive ones.
While Verofax has been mentioned by PwC Middle East as a climate tech start-up, in reality, the venture’s operational expertise also provides its client businesses ‘Direct to Consumer Marketing’ solutions, by harnessing real-time first-party data and drawing up tailored personalised recommendation and promotion offers.
Verofax brings ‘Mixed Reality Experiences’ into its SaaS solutions, by using elements like ‘Augmented Reality In-Store’ and ‘Life Like 3D E-Commerce’. Verofax also plays a key role, when it comes to protecting the brand identity (fighting counterfeits) of its client ventures.
Since the European Union and the United States have introduced regulations to curb imports of high-emission commodities like steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, chemicals and energy, existing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems are not equipped to aggregate data across the supply chain and prevent double counting.
This poses a huge challenge for the companies to comply with the operational standards for measuring and reporting following ISO 14064 standards, when it comes to exporting their products in the West.
“Not complying is also not an option with up to 35% of revenue in tariffs levied at European Union border customs. The problem necessitates commodity passporting and emissions tracking without the risk of double counting,” JCN Newswire sums up the challenge perfectly.
Wassim Merheby, CEO of Verofax, told the media, “Existing ERP systems are siloed by design, which hinders the capability of having immutable data and certifications verified on the interoperable system for all stakeholders from material collectors to recyclers, exporters, customs and clients. Verofax offers an award-winning Digital Passporting and traceability solution for multi-tier supply chain verification, enabling seamless compliance and verification of Carbon emissions. The Gulf region trails behind India and other markets that recycle up to 80% of targeted commodities. Recycling can reduce emissions by up to 95%, thus markets with lower recycling thresholds are at risk of being priced out of the EU market. The UAE for example, exports $1.5B to the EU mainly aluminium, and recycles under 10% to date. With Verofax emission verification and commodity passporting, exporters have a great opportunity to trail a path towards export growth.”
Verofax’s ‘Digital Passporting & Traceability Solution’ for compliance verification automation ensures the commodities meet the EU and US parameters like emissions, apart from preventing recycling double counting across the tiered supply chain.
Solutions Tailored Made For Industries
For its clients in the retail sector, Verofax offers automation solutions powered by blockchain and AI. These solutions help the ventures to boost their shopper engagement through personalisation, apart from optimising inventory management systems with real-time data alerts.
These businesses can also upgrade their retail operations and automate the customer checkout methods, apart from delivering validated products to the customers.
Using Verofax’s ‘Immersive Commerce’, a retail business can set up their virtual stores in a 3D environment. This solution keeps the retail sector future-proof, given the fact that shopping through the metaverse will be the trend to watch out for.
For logistics, Verofax helps its clients track their product inventory in transit via an interoperable platform, which enables these ventures to exercise door-to-door real-time logging and preventive measures.
Verofax’s ‘Logistics Asset Management Solution’ tracks, optimises, and helps clients validate the supply chain, apart from lowering costs while improving operational efficiency and achieving a quick return on investment.
The solution is a one-stop logistics asset management and tracking mechanism, which achieves oversight on the client’s product inventories across suppliers, channels, and end-users. It also guarantees the ventures’ data security on the enterprise-grade multi-tenant cloud, apart from bringing blockchain into the play, to help the logistics businesses remain compliant towards data security-related policies.
Similarly, Verofax is providing game-changing business solutions for other industries like consumer goods, pharma, energy, and manufacturing.
Expertise In Sustainability
“Shoppers preference is shifting towards brands that adopt values such as sustainability, environmentally friendly and community engagement. Auri and Verofax share these core values and have teamed up to provide consumers with a seamless application to validate brand claims and increase direct engagement,” said Kristy Yong, Executive Director of Auri, a Malaysia-based venture which empowers lifestyle brands.
In 2020, Auri announced a pact with Verofax to jointly launch an Asset Digitisation and Traceability App for sustainable product passporting.
Verofax is now offering sustainable business solutions like ‘Product Lifecycle Assessment’ (sustainable rating and certificate validation for client businesses) and ‘Power Sustainable Sorting in Retail’ (green consumer choices with sustainable sorting, validated on interoperable blockchain).
Customers are becoming product ambassadors and sales channels, as they research and access sustainable product range. Companies, through Verofax, are now screening suppliers through the ‘Sustainability Index’, to efficiently manage their environmental and social efforts.
Through Verofax, companies are harnessing consumer insights and preferences to offer personalised experiences. The whole concept of ‘Sustainability Industry Standards’ is getting redefined by Verofax.
Its rulebook now ensures lower operational costs and improved operational efficiency for businesses, resulting in quick return on investment, while remaining compliant to data security and climate-related regulations.
Verofax In News
In November 2023, Verofax was selected as one of the top three winners of the Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) Ramp-Up Programme. The programme, apart from nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs, will also ensure that these businesses will contribute to economic growth and job creation in the realm of low-emission commodity exports.
In the same month, the venture was selected among 521 start-ups at the GITEX 2023 Expo, Supernova Challenge in Dubai. Verofax earned the honour due to its blockchain-based business solutions. During the event, after undergoing rounds of pitching against global finalists, Verofax emerged as the winner for its specialisation of turning shopping and consumer products interactive.