Overview
zenGate Global is a software company that runs Palmyra, an online marketplace where certified supply chain producers (tea growers, coffee farms, and other agricultural businesses) can sell directly to international buyers. The platform handles the listing, the payment, and the proof of origin in one place, so a buyer in London can purchase from a tea estate in Sri Lanka without juggling middlemen1. Each trade is recorded on a blockchain so the goods can be traced from farm to buyer.
The company is incorporated in Dublin and led by CEO Dan Friedman, a member of the founding team at Input Output, the engineering firm behind Cardano2. Palmyra runs on Cardano and operates in markets across Asia-Pacific and Africa, with country teams on the ground in Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Latin America.
Key Features
- Direct producer-to-buyer marketplace. Certified producers list commodities as tokenized real-world assets and trade with vetted international buyers, cutting out layers of brokers that traditionally sit between a farm and an export buyer1.
- Built-in traceability. Each batch of goods is tracked on the blockchain so buyers can verify origin, certifications, and shipment history before paying, useful for both quality control and supply-chain disclosure compliance1.
- Escrow payments across borders. Money sits with a neutral holder that releases funds only when both sides confirm the trade, which lowers counterparty risk for sellers shipping abroad and buyers paying in advance1.
- Open-source Cardano stack. zenGate's GitHub publishes the Winter Protocol (its tokenization framework, in both Aiken automated rulebooks and TypeScript), a Cardano API connector, and a merkle oracle for piping off-chain data on the blockchain3.
- Vetted advisory team. Advisors include Lamon Rutten, former UN Chief of Commodities and former CEO of the Indian Multi Commodities Exchange, plus tea industry veteran Joyce Maina of the European Speciality Tea Association24.
What to Expect
Visiting zengate.global gives a corporate overview: the company story, the team, and a product page for Palmyra. The actual marketplace lives at palmyra.app and is gated for verified businesses. There is no public consumer signup. To get access, buyers and sellers reach out through the contact form for a guided demo.
For developers and ecosystem researchers, the GitHub organization is the most informative entry point. It hosts the Winter Protocol traceability code, oracle infrastructure (the part that brings outside data onto the blockchain), and a Project Catalyst Fund 11 proposal focused on real-world asset tokenization in East Africa3. The Medium blog publishes longer-form updates on partnerships and product direction5.
For a non-technical observer, the easiest way to follow the project is the World Tea News coverage and the company's LinkedIn, both of which track Palmyra's rollout in specialty tea markets4.
