Geneva (Switzerland) (January 13th, 2022)

The Aura Blockchain Consortium, founded by LVMH, Prada Group, Cartier, part of Richemont, and OTB Group, is pleased to announce the launch of Aura SaaS, a game-changing cloud-based SaaS solution. The Aura Blockchain Consortium currently has more than 15 million digital tokens on their own, private permission based blockchain platform which offers both up-stream and down-stream traceability in the supply chain which is direct to consumer.

The launch of Aura SaaS is the first blockchain based platform designed for luxury brands to help the luxury industry to embrace the blockchain in their day-to-day business operations including: supply chain, customer service, marketing, manufacturing, sustainability, purchasing, logistics, and legal. Aura SaaS will allow Aura member brands to quickly and easily onboard, maximising value focusing on the customer journey and digital innovation and allowing for both upstream and downstream traceability in the supply chain for consumers – making it one of the best direct to consumer offerings in the market.

Aura SaaS is a no-code solution that allows for a quick and hassle-free implementation.. There are also lower up-front costs, as Aura SaaS users benefit from lower license and onboarding fees. The launch of Aura SaaS will make Aura more accessible to luxury brands across the globe while strengthening the industry’s response to challenges such as counterfeiting and responsible sourcing.

With Aura SaaS, brands can easily access the Aura Blockchain directly through APIs and connect them to their own IT systems and applications. Main functionalities include:

● Smart contract generator - no coding skills needed
● Products registered on the blockchain
● Product events / rich content management
● Product history
● Product ownership acquisition & transfer

On top of the blockchain functionalities and APIs accessible by luxury brands, Aura SaaS will offer various white-label front-end interfaces and web pages to easily write, read and display information from the Aura Blockchain – this will be fully customised to align with the UX of each brand, requiring no technical or blockchain expertise. These webpages can be also directly accessible by luxury clients. Aura SaaS helps luxury brands to address the following topics: authenticity, ownership, warranty, transparency and traceability targeting both upstream use cases (e.g. raw material sourcing) and downstream use cases (e.g. digital certificates of ownership and authenticity certified on the Aura Blockchain, e-warranty, transfer of ownership, etc.)

Daniela Ott, Secretary General of Aura Blockchain Consortium, said of the launch: “Our ecosystem is growing on a daily basis and Aura's solution covers the entire lifecycle of luxury production and consumption. Aura SaaS provides a game-changing toolbox for the luxury industry with an easy onboarding, minimum costs and without the need to manage any Cloud infrastructure and deploying any instance, thus reducing the Time-to-Market to launch new blockchain use cases. This solution is meant to last and benefit the whole value chain. Given its accessible pricing, it is a solution suitable for luxury brands of any size, for most product categories within the luxury sphere.”

Alongside the Aura SaaS solution, the Aura Blockchain Consortium is also developing a suite of turnkey tools to accelerate route to market, with smaller brands in mind. These would include simple, ready-to-use front-end tools that can provide luxury consumers with a visualization of data on the blockchain. For example, brands could offer more transparency into their sustainability credentials by providing consumers with the ability to view the provenance of materials used in the manufacturing process. Such a solution is particularly attractive to brands yet to implement their own advanced front-end but are keen to offer customers more insights and interactions.