Distributed ledger startup Nuco has inked its first formal partnership since being spun out from Deloitte’s FinTech team earlier this year.

The deal with Terepac Corporation has resulted in what the companies are calling the “Terepac Blockchain”, a distributed ledger designed to allow manufacturers to follow the entire life-cycle of their products, as part of what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

While Nuco continues with its original goal of building products designed to make it easier to launch industry-wide blockchain consortia, the partnership provides the first evidence of where that effort might eventually lead.

Nuco co-founder Kesem Frank told CoinDesk:

“The Internet-of-Things is actually a great example because it’s less about the velocity of transactions and it is much more about volume. To actually establish a platform according to different skills, you need to apply different thinking to the system level.”

By tailoring different functionality based on corporate and industry-wide demands, Nuco believes it can further optimize the benefits of a distributed ledger.

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

Founded in 2016, Nuco was originally a component of Deloitte’s Rubix blockchain offering, but was moved outside the firm in order to scale its operations more quickly.

Blockchain and IoT

In addition to being a step for Nuco, however, the partnership is also the latest sign the IoT industry is beginning to explore blockchain more seriously.

Cisco, for example, published a report projecting in June of this year that machine-to-machine (M2M) connections that comprise the IoT will grow from 4.9bn in 2015 to 12.2bn by 2020, representing nearly half (46%) of total connected devices.

To provide increased customer service to the owners and manufacturers of those objects, Terepac Corporation was founded in 2005. But with increased attention being given to blockchain tech, the company’s potential services have changed, according to Terepac’s founder and CEO, Ric Asselstine,

In interview with CoinDesk, Asselstine said that he initially only wanted to create a more efficient way for the manufacturers of objects to service those goods long after they were purchased.

But as he’s been working with Nuco his vision has changed.

Asselstine said:

“We don’t know all the relationships and or value that can be formed from deploying blockchain technology. While I didn’t originally foresee this as an opportunity to be that charismatic leader in the space, the potential of the Terepac Blockchain is absolutely there.”

Internet of Things image via Shutterstock