Nevada launches Orion, a new business licensing platform

Nevada is taking a major step toward modernizing how businesses interact with state government with the launch of a new business licensing platform, called Orion.

Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar this week announced that Orion will replace the state’s long-running SilverFlume system, which he said has struggled in recent years with technical problems and long customer wait times. The initial rollout introduces a new Uniform Commercial Code module, while the full replacement of the business licensing portal is planned for next year.

Aguilar said the overhaul is about making it easier to start and run a business in Nevada. 

“The system we’ve had in place for a long time has not worked appropriately, making it harder for businesses to do business in Nevada. That’s not our goal, our goal is really to make Nevada the number one place in the country to do business,” he said in a roundtable discussion with government officials and media Tuesday.

Since the project started, the Nevada Secretary of State’s office has reported improvements, including fixing more than 1,000 bugs, reducing the average call wait times to under five minutes and expanding self-service tools so businesses can get answers without calling for help.

Aguilar said ORION offers a cleaner user experience, stronger security and fraud prevention, faster document processing and fewer unnecessary steps for users.

“The Secretary of State’s office is truly a technology company,” he said during the roundtable. “Everything we do is based on technology, from business filings to [uniform commercial code] to the elections to securities regulations, to notary. Everything we do is technology. And we’re only as good as the technology we have.” 

Officials said phase two of the new platform’s rollout, which is named after Nevada’s first territorial secretary, Orion Clemens, will introduce a simplified filing process and integrate economic data analysis, updated trademarks, business licenses and notary services — before fully retiring SilverFlume.