API3 Enterprise Development Report, November-December 2021, January 2022
This is a quarterly progress report for the Enterprise Development team — DAO Cycle #5.
Over the last three months the Enterprise team has been driving holistic organizational-wide value within the DAO. We have been inching forward with progress as it pertains to large Fortune 2000 companies.
Our additional focus has also been to push forward with data beacons.
Nov 2021 — Jan 2022 | Completed Deliverables (Cycle #5)
During operations cycle #5, the Enterprise BD team hosted successful workshops and hackathons. The partnership with the Open Bank Project (OBP) saw a state level hackathon take place in El Salvador with Banco Hipotecario. The Enterprise-OBP lead also visited El Salvador for the in-person and virtual bank hackathon event which was a success. The LATAM bitcoin movement is an area of opportunity which the Enterprise-OBP lead is exploring further.
The Enterprise team in close coordination with the technical team hosted two workshops and delivered two proof of concepts (PoCs). The first proof of concept was for a large publicly listed company in which we needed to demonstrate the application of a Request-Response Protocol Airnode in executing on set parameters. This pilot was a success and hopefully soon, we can disclose this large well-known provider once commercials have been set in motion and next steps discussed.
The other PoC related to the integration of a shopping cart, where one could select and check-out the desired data set and pay the provider in fiat or crypto. This PoC is still on-going and we also hope to disclose the provider soon.
There are two other PoCs at the requirements building stage. The one is from a 6-month requirements engagement with a very large market data provider and the other with a medium size firm focusing on loyalty-points.
We assisted the technical team in interacting with RPC providers. This is still ongoing as RPC providers increase the robustness of the API3 Airnode infrastructure.
The interaction with a large cloud provider is still ongoing and pending an internal restructure on their part. We are giving the cloud provider some space and will re-engage with them in mid-February to rekindle their ambitions for Web3.
We have also hosted workshops and use-case presentations in order to aid large enterprises who are still navigating Web3.0 and DeFi with a view to entering this space with confidence.
The Enterprise and dApps and Platforms teams secured Amberdata.io for our new product, data beacons. Data beacons have been a core focus in cycle #5 due to their demand and importance to DeFi and Web3. See the following article related to the Coinmarketcap outage. The enterprise team has also been assisting in closing the loop with the dApps teams on users and providers. We already have a few existing API providers who are waitlisted for connecting to the data beacon product! This will also be a priority focus for some part of cycle #6 as we look to provide PoCs around data feeds/beacons to large enterprises in addition to the Request-Response Protocol of the Airnode.
We are excited to disclose that a large weather data provider and household brand that we all know, has joined the API3 Alliance. We are enthralled by this company’s excitement for Web3 and look forward to working alongside this innovative enterprise. The marketing team will disclose further details when they are available!
In cooperation with the operations team, the outcome of the previously mentioned ISO27001 standard, has led us to make a go or no-go decision. Even though this is a great certification to have, with some standing in the traditional financial and technology space, we have opted to place this on ice. The reason being that the certifications cost-benefit payoff is too low given other competing priorities and the timelines of its implementation. We will revisit this at a time where there is excess capacity or the need arises.
Finally, the team has ongoing efforts on researching and outreaching other relevant industry associations, enterprises and consortia. The API3 team focused on lead generation and more strategic areas building out pipelines for Q2, 2022 during the December slow-down festive season.
We will also endeavor to update the community, as soon as large deals are signed and legally possible — due to some of these large interactions also being of strategic importance or possessing brand reputation aspects.
Already thinking about the next DAO Cycle #6
For business development cycle #6, the enterprise-facing business development team’s goal is to focus on growing data beacon usage among large data providers. Additionally, it is to follow-through with one of the world’s largest market data providers in a PoC which we have been negotiating and creating requirements for. The Enterprise team will further focus on market data providers as key target sectors for data beacons.
The OBP-team-lead will also be reinforcing the relationship with LATAM institutions, national banks and OBP. The goal of which would be to run more bank hackathons themed around bitcoin adoption in LATAM. Additional synergies will be explored and developed to unlock new areas of opportunity.
We have a scheduled interaction to meet with a nation state government department (in the EU) to showcase some use-cases related to their needs. Very exciting times ahead already for Q2!
The enterprise approach and strategy has been working well and we will continue this method, speeding up the pace for cycle #6. This is through email interactions, virtual and face-to-face conferences and venture capital networks. In this way, we will continue to showcase PoCs and live Airnode use to large partners.
We are picking up on previous engagements that slowed down during the holiday season and aligning interactions with our technical team for Q2,2022. Given our membership to the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, (EEA), we will make the most of this affiliation attending monthly events for networking as well as scoping current users and partners on an enterprise-level.
During cycle #6, the Enterprise team will be attending (virtual and/or face-to-face) events and finding opportunities to partake in various Industry-focused conferences as delegates or as speakers: ETH Denver, Blockchain Africa, Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) and Consensus Austin are currently on our schedules. If you will be there, we would love to meet you. Please send us a discord DM or follow Forum for live updates!
We will also endeavour to work with a top 10 consultancy or implementation partner (McKinsey type) to add more credibility to integrating and implementing data oracle solutions powered by the Airnode.
Cycle #6 will be focused on driving data beacons with the development of additional POCs and Airnode integrations in which we can showcase to the community. This will tangiblize our data oracle infrastructure while demonstrating our ability to deliver!
Learn more about data beacons, request-response protocol and dAPIs.
Explainer video about data beacons a.k.a. data feeds
Is your company looking to build on Blockchain?
I want to thank the community for reaching out to me directly with opportunities. Please keep this up as there is no better introduction to enterprises, dApps or APIs than through existing ecosystems!
If you are an enterprise looking to explore and delve into the blockchain space, we would be more than excited to do a use-case exploration session to see if we can work together .
Reach out to us at the following email address: gio@api3.org or you can also reach the API3 team on the API3 Discord and Forum!
Do you know an API data provider that wants to monetize their data or provide their API to Web3.0 customers? Click Here!
If you are a dApp or Platform that is looking to consume on-chain reference data , varied data sets or data feeds — lets connect you to Airnode-powered API Providers or data beacons. See our 150+ API Providers here!
