From handshake to settlement
Every deal that goes wrong does so in the gap between agreement and completion. Here's exactly how Dealium closes that gap — four moves, one shared record, from the first term sheet to the last cent settled. No consortium to join. No blockchain. No waiting for the other side's bank.
Free one-deal pilot · Counterparties join free · Non-custodial by design
The deal we'll follow
One trade, 13 stages, one audit trail
To make it concrete, we'll walk one illustrative deal end to end. A broker introduces a buyer and a seller for 500 MT of crude sunflower oil, Odesa → Barcelona, CIF (Incoterms 2020), €182,400. Watch it move through the lifecycle.
AI copilot · Operator: Deposit confirmed and quality passed. A second operator must approve the €182,400 release before funds move on the rail.
Illustrative walkthrough of the product surface — not a real customer deal. Dealium is pre-revenue and selecting design partners now.
The walkthrough
Four moves take a deal from handshake to settlement
The same four moves run every deal, whether it's a single container or a full vessel. Each one is enforced in code — not left to email, trust, or memory.
Structure the terms
The broker drafts a versioned term sheet — commodity, quantity, price, Incoterm, ports, quality spec, deposit rules, commission. Buyer and seller counter or accept. Any revision forks a new version and forces re-acceptance, so all three sides are always committed to the same version — and an accepted version auto-generates the Sales Contract PDF.
Verify the counterparty
Before the deal can advance, each org clears business-registry KYB, UBO discovery, and sanctions/PEP screening through a deterministic, regulator-explainable risk engine. Nobody trades with an unverified or sanctioned party — the "cleared-to-trade" gate is a hard stop, not a checkbox.
Control the money
The buyer funds a deposit to a licensed rail. Dealium issues deposit and release instructions conditioned on the terms being met — with two-operator maker/checker approval above a threshold, over-release caps, and an immutable payment-event ledger. Dealium orchestrates; it never holds, transmits, or converts the funds.
Track & settle
DCSA shipment milestones, lab-verified quality (SHA-256 fingerprinted), auto-generated invoices and a double-entry ledger carry the deal to close. The release fires only on verified documents; broker commission and the platform fee settle automatically from the same flow. If something breaks, a neutral arbitrator resolves it on the record.
One versioned term sheet, both sides committed
Commodity, quantity, price, Incoterm, ports and quality spec as structured fields — every revision forces re-acceptance, so nobody signs a stale version.
Structure the terms — and lock them
Deals unravel when "what we agreed" lives in a WhatsApp thread. Dealium makes the term sheet the single source of truth: two-sided, versioned, and impossible to advance until everyone accepts the same version.
- Structured, not freeform. Commodity, quantity, price, Incoterms 2020, load/discharge ports, quality spec, deposit rules and broker commission — as fields, GAFTA/FOSFA-aware.
- Counter-offers, tracked. Each revision forks a new version; the old one can't be silently re-signed.
- Forced re-acceptance. Change a term after agreement and both sides must re-accept — no stale consent.
- Contract on agreement. The accepted version auto-generates the Sales Contract PDF, on the record.
Verify the counterparty before a cent is at stake
The riskiest party in any trade is the one you can't see. Dealium gates the deal on identity: no verification, no advance — for both sides, not just theirs.
- Registry-grade KYB. Business verification against official registries, with the legal entity and directors resolved.
- UBO discovery. Beneficial-owner graph so you know who actually stands behind the org.
- Sanctions & PEP screening. OFAC / EU / UN lists at acceptance and on an ongoing basis — not once and forgotten.
- A gate, not a suggestion. A deterministic, regulator-explainable risk engine decides "cleared to trade." Compliance can hold anything that smells wrong.
Control the money — without ever holding it
This is the move that breaks the standoff. The buyer won't pay before proof; the seller won't ship before a deposit. Dealium conditions the money on the terms — and instructs a licensed rail to move it, so the funds never touch Dealium's books.
- Non-custodial by design. Buyer → licensed rail → seller. Dealium sends the instruction; money never passes through Dealium.
- Conditional release. Funds move only when the term-sheet conditions — documents, quality, milestones — are met.
- Two-operator approval. Above a threshold, the operator who approves a release can't be the one who executes it.
- Immutable ledger. Every deposit, hold and release is recorded append-only, with over-release caps enforced in code.
- Your rails. WorldFirst, Airwallex or Bridge — one interface, provider-agnostic.
Track & settle — proof in, money out, books balanced
The last move is where old deals drown in reconciliation. Dealium carries the physical leg, the quality proof and the accounting on the same record, so settlement is a consequence of the deal — not a second project.
- Live logistics. DCSA-normalized ocean milestones, containers, ETD/ETA and demurrage countdowns.
- Verified quality. Lab results with SHA-256 fingerprints and verify links — driving quality-adjusted settlement automatically.
- Automatic settlement. Broker commission and the 0.2% platform fee settle from the same flow — commission can't be bypassed.
- Books that balance. A double-entry general ledger and commercial invoices posted as the deal closes.
One room, every role
What each side sees at each stage
The deal is one shared record — but each role gets its own lens, driven by a self-hosted, role-aware copilot that tells them what to look for and what to do next. Access is enforced by a three-axis, 8-role model.
| Stage | Broker | Buyer · importer | Seller · exporter | Dealium operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Structure | Drafts the term sheet and commission; needs both sides on the same version. | Reviews price, quality spec and deposit rules; counters or accepts. | Confirms quantity, ports and Incoterm; counters or accepts. | Watches the room open; copilot pre-flags any missing or risky terms. |
| 2 · Verify | Sees each side's KYB status; the deal can't advance until both clear. | Completes KYB/UBO; sees the seller's cleared-to-trade badge. | Completes KYB/UBO; sees the buyer's cleared-to-trade badge. | Reviews risk ratings and any sanctions hit; approves or holds. |
| 3 · Control money | Sees the deposit land and the release condition; commission leg attached. | Funds the deposit to a licensed rail; approves release once proof is in. | Sees "deposit confirmed" before shipping; gets paid on release. | Applies two-operator maker/checker approval on releases above threshold. |
| 4 · Track & settle | Watches milestones; commission settles automatically from the same flow. | Tracks shipment and quality; release fires only on verified documents. | Uploads B/L and CoA; receives quality-adjusted settlement. | Confirms settlement and ledger posting; steps in only on a dispute. |
Roles shown are the deal-facing lenses; the platform also has compliance, arbitrator and admin roles across three axes (org type · deal position · platform role).
Nothing stalls in the dark
SLA timers keep the deal moving
Trade dies in silence — a term sheet nobody re-signs, a deposit nobody sends, a document nobody uploads. Dealium puts a clock on the moments that matter, so a stall is visible to everyone and someone always owns the next step.
Acceptance window
A revised term sheet re-opens acceptance on a timer, so a stale counter-offer can't linger unanswered.
Deposit deadline
Once terms are agreed, a funding window keeps the deal from stalling before it has even begun.
Document SLA
B/L, CoA and inspection uploads carry due dates tied to the shipment leg — chased by the copilot, not by email.
Dispute response
Raising a dispute freezes funds and starts a response clock for both sides and the arbitrator.
Demurrage countdown
DCSA milestones drive live demurrage and detention countdowns, so no one eats an avoidable charge.
Proactive nudges
Every timer surfaces as an action item for the responsible role — the copilot pushes it before it lapses.
Timers are workflow features that keep a deal on track; they are not guarantees of any outcome.
Why there's nothing to join
You need one counterparty — not the whole industry
The last wave of trade platforms tried to fix trust by getting everyone onto one shared ledger. The consortium blockchain networks — we.trade, Marco Polo, Contour — asked banks, corporates and carriers to all join before the thing worked. Most of them wound down. The lesson is simple: a deal has two sides and maybe a broker, not an industry.
- No network to bootstrap. Invite your counterparty by email; they join free and the deal runs. There is no minimum viable consortium.
- No blockchain, no token. Dealium is ordinary, auditable software on an EU-hostable stack — no chain to sync, no gas, no wallet to manage.
- No waiting on the other side's bank. Payment control runs on rails you already trust; nobody has to re-platform to trade with you.
- The deal is the demo. Value shows up on trade one — not after the network reaches critical mass.
Consortium-network outcomes are a matter of public record; named here to explain our design choice, not to disparage.
Before you start
Common questions
How long does onboarding take?
Creating an account and opening a deal room takes minutes. KYB and sanctions verification typically clear within hours to a couple of days, depending on the registry and how quickly the counterparty provides documents (checks are passed through at roughly €15 partner cost). Design partners run a free one-deal pilot over about 30–45 days — we onboard alongside you on a real trade.
Do both sides need an account?
Yes. Because the deal is one shared, auditable record, every party acts inside the same room — so buyer, seller and any broker each need an account. The good news: the deal organizer pays and invited counterparties join free. That's the broker wedge — verify both sides, control the payment, and your buyers and sellers come along at no cost.
What if there's a dispute?
Raising a dispute freezes the funds on the licensed rail and starts a response clock. A neutral platform arbitrator — never your counterparty — reviews the evidence already on the record (terms, documents, quality, milestones) and resolves it against an immutable decision record. Because everything happened in one room, there's a single, tamper-evident version of events to decide on.
If Dealium never holds the money, how does payment work?
Dealium orchestrates the deal and issues deposit and release instructions to a licensed payment provider — WorldFirst, Airwallex or Bridge — which actually holds and moves the funds. (Payment rails are built and integrated but not yet live in production.) Money flows buyer → licensed rail → seller; it never passes through Dealium's books. Releases above a threshold need two-operator approval, and every movement is recorded on an append-only ledger. Dealium is a software provider, not a bank, payment institution or escrow agent.
Is my deal data used to train AI?
No. The copilot runs on self-hosted open models — your pricing, counterparties and documents never touch a public model and never train anyone else's. Every AI call is schema-validated and audit-logged, and the AI stays advisory: it checks and flags, and people decide.
See it on one of your own deals
Bring one live trade. We'll run it with you end to end — structure the terms, verify the counterparty, control the money, track & settle — with your funds never leaving your control.
Free one-deal pilot · Counterparties join free · EU-hosted