Digital Asset: Samsung, Salesforce, and Microsoft back the creator of DAML smart-contract language

NEW YORK – On February 4, Digital Asset, a startup responsible for the DAML smart-contract language, published a press release announcing that Salesforce Ventures and Samsung Venture Investment Corp could be found among the participants in the company’s Series C fundraising, while it managed to raise an astonishing $35mn last December during its initial round.

According to the PR, the funds raised during the latest series will be allocated to accelerating the adoption of the DAML smart-contract language in a cross-industry fashion.

At the same time, Digital Asset aims to expand the number of the current DAML-oriented products by investing in new products designed and incentivized to upscale the DAML experience.  

Nevertheless, Salesforce and Samsung were not the only tech giants involved in the project, with Digital Asset citing that a former 28-year Microsoft veteran Susan Hauser, has been appointed to the board of directors, after serving as an external advisor for the company. 

Hauser was the Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s Worldwide Enterprise & Partner Group, and her everyday routine had to do with the commercial sector, government affairs, and international-scale enterprise partnerships, making her the ideal candidate to propel Digital Asset’s DAML language to the broader community. 

“Salesforce Ventures and Samsung joining our Series C financing round demonstrates the potential that technology giants see in DAML as the standard for smart contracts. Appointing Susan Hauser to the board will help us capitalize on this vision. She brings us her unparalleled understanding of customer needs and exceptional experience building an enterprise business at Microsoft,” said Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset.

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So, what exactly is Digital Asset ‘s DAML?

DAML is dubbed as a next-gen open-source smart-contract language developed and promoted in 2019. Similar to other public and private smart-contract languages such as Ethereum’s Solidity and Kadena’s PACT, DAML aims to create smart-contracts to automate business processes and enable digital agreements between two or more legal entities. 

Digital Asset plans to integrate the language with VMWare Blockchain, Hyperledger subsidiaries including Sawtooth and Fabric, R3’s Corda, as well as Amazon’s QLDB, which tells us they are aiming for the enterprise pocket directly. 

This is not the first company that tries to capitalize on making smart-contract programming easier and accessible to enterprises and startups, and it is certainly not the last to do so. 

It seems that 2020 has a hidden gem of domain cultivating behind the scenes, while everyone’s attention is turned to Bitcoin’s price and government-backed stablecoins. 

Smart-contracts will not only automate businesses in the digital sphere but in essence, it is the first humane privilege we grant the machine: the ability to perform a specific set of tasks without human interference, as long as the contract is executed according to its pre-programmed and pre-agreed protocol.  

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Verdict

We previously had the chance to interview the ex-head of JP Morgan’s blockchain division Juno, and SEC’s head at the Cryptocurrency Steering Committee Mr. Will Martino, who explained to us his latest venture Kadena, who is also aiming to revolutionize the DLT scene with a brand new human-readable and programmable smart-contract language.

From what I understand, the importance of creating autonomous business modules running on a cross-border and cross-industry fashion on the blockchain is undeniably important for businesses that want to be fast and flexible under any given scenario. 

What’s missing from this is, for someone who’s not familiar with the blockchain principles is indeed a smart-contract language that would sort of allow you to create clean-cut digital contracts in a drag and drop fashion. 

I don’t believe that Ethereum’s Solidity is bad or outdated in any case, but It would require some basic computer science logic to handle, while these newly popped enterprise-tailored languages aim to deliver the benefits of blockchain document administration, verification, and distribution without requiring excessive blockchain knowledge.