Blockchain Startups

How To Grow Your Startup With Blockchain In 2019?

From TheStartup on Medium, by Mantra Malhotra, Nov. 1 2018

2019 is coming and Blockchain has gained a huge popularity in a very short period of time. Currently, it is helping reshape industries in multiple domains viz. Healthcare, finance, manufacturing, education, and government.

It will continue to evolve more and be used in many innovative ways. So, it is the peak time to leverage Blockchain for transforming your business and reshaping your target industries.

Before we start discussing how Blockchain technology can help your business grow in the near future, just take a close look at some interesting Blockchain stats:

As per Statista, it was expected in 2017 that the global Blockchain technology market would reach 339.5 million U.S. dollars in size and is expected to grow to 2.3 billion U.S. dollars by 2021.

According to the latest survey from IBM, it suggests that 65 percent of major global banks will use Blockchain technology within just three years. As per the reports by the same source, 17% of Banks will go to have full Blockchain product.

In terms of its usage, according to Statista, about 53 percent of respondents stated that their companies are working on a supply chain use case.

In this blog, we will discuss some ways using which you can build your own business with Blockchain technology and the respective apps.

Below given the list of such ways/strategies:

1) Connect with Blockchain

As a startup, first, you come up with a new and fresh business idea. It doesn’t matter how difficult your traditional startup business idea may seem, technology can make it look perfect and seamless.

Whether you want to start a business or scale the one you are already running, blockchain can help you in a number of ways. Some of these are listed below:

-> Help you with marketing via its transparency feature and accurate tracking.

-> Help you with funding through Blockchain ICOs.

-> Help you with security through its cryptographic system.

So use the above ideas and integrate them into your startup business which can make your next success story for a long period of time.

2) Use Blockchain-powered ICO

If you are a startup and have a great business idea, one that you are sure your target audience will love. But not having the necessary funds to advance your startup vision. Then no need to worry now as it is a common problem for all startup businesses. Traditional venture capital is actually difficult to achieve.

Today, the Blockchain technology initial coin offerings (ICO) throw good news for aspiring entrepreneurs. Start thinking of the ICOs as a way to democratize the initial financing. They provide a platform to raise funds from individual investors, assuring emerging entrepreneurs that no one is alone in this.

Few things to take care of when you are starting a business with Blockchain are mentioned below:

-> Refine your idea

-> Configure the blockchain for your new token

-> Receive the seed capital to finance your new company

A number of your competitors are already benefiting from these offers, attracting huge sums of money from the ICO driven by blockchain. According to Coindesk reports, in the second quarter of 2017, entrepreneurs raised about $ 291 million through ICO, compared to $ 187 million in traditional risk funds.

Make sure you have the technical expertise to consume all the benefits that ICO has to offer. For this, you can hire a developer to help you in this effort as they can make sure that your ICO driven by blockchain serves not only to raise funds but also as a tool to create steady growth.

3) Use crypto to run your ads

In order to grow your startup business, it is important to promote it properly. In an era of widespread online advertising frauds that attract attention, promoting your startup business can be challenging as building and executing it.

Desperate to promote their products, startups often bombard their customers with torrents of bulletins, coupons, practical guides, and innumerable advertisements.

The reasons usually lack attention because business leaders do not really know what exactly their clients want. They are simply waiting for their messages to attract enough customers.

However, crypto can professionally address groups of key customers with messages that resonate with them. Blockchain combines an excellent level of tracking and transparency with the ability to collect accurate data. Together with this, it guarantees the optimal frequency of ad display for each consumer.

4) Cryptography protects your startup

As we already know that cryptography can protect your data online, defend your e-commerce site, and protect your company’s files better than any other solution.

Powered by the digital signature, as well as by private and public keys, cryptography is an incredible solution for protecting your data in today’s digital business world. The reason behind its success is that it transmits information in codes. Thus, keeping the data illegible for unauthorized users.

Youngwhan “Nick” Lee, CEO of EcoVerse and founder of the W3C Blockchain community said that “Transaction logs are verified every time they move from one blockchain node to another,” and “That helps you track and review your audits. Simple and seamless fashion.”

However, you can take the cryptography beyond the protection of the data of your startup. It can help authenticate your potential customers, separating real buyers from cybercriminals.

Some major blockchain apps are listed below that can help your business:

- Apps for Notary: Uproov

- Apps for Distributed cloud storage: Storj

- Apps for Supply chain communications

- Apps for Smart Contracts

- Apps for Payments and money transfers

- Apps for Digital identity

- Apps for Networking & IOT

- Apps for Gift cards: Gyft Block

Conclusion:

So far we have seen the list of strategies/ways in which your startup can build a great business. Using the above-mentioned ideas, it will help you quickly develop blockchain applications to redefine your startup business networks.

In addition, by hiring a reliable blockchain web development company such as ValueCoders, you can achieve this goal.

At ValueCoders, we have a proficient team of Blockchain web developers who have successfully delivered more than 4200 projects to more than 500 happy customers along with their expert software testing services around the world.

Source: https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-grow-your-startup-using-blockchain-in-2019-44d4e6682147

Top funded blockchain startups & companies by total funding raised:

	Number of  Funding  Rounds	Total  Funding  Amount
Coinbase	7	$525.3M
Circle	5	$246M
Qulian Technology	3	CN¥1.5B
Bitfury Group	5	$170M
HashCash Consultants	3	$150M
Figure	2	$100M
Blockchain Industries Inc	1	$100M
Oasis Labs	5	$90M
Ledger	4	$85.1M
High Fidelity	5	$72.9M

ICO-Funded Startups Getting a Closer Look From The SEC

SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups

From DecryptMedia.com by Daniel Roberts October 10, 2018

Hundreds of startups that did token sales are finding out they’re in violation of securities law— including many that were sure they did it the right way.

During the past few months, the Securities and Exchange Commission has significantly widened its crackdown on certain initial coin offerings, putting hundreds of cryptocurrency startups at risk.

The SEC sent out a slew of initial information-seeking subpoenas at the start of 2018. Now the agency has returned to many of those companies, and subpoenaed many more—focusing on those that failed to properly ensure they sold their token exclusively to accredited investors.

The agency is exerting pressure on many of those companies to settle their cases. In response, dozens of companies have quietly agreed to refund investor money and pay a fine. But many startups that have been subpoenaed say they are left in the dark struggling to satisfy the SEC’s demands, and are uncertain of how others are handling it, according to conversations with more than 15 industry sources as part of a joint investigation by Yahoo Finance and Decrypt.

The sources, many of whom are employees of companies that were subpoenaed by the SEC or are attorneys for those companies, requested anonymity, because the SEC restricts them from discussing the matter.

ICO funding, which began in 2014, exploded in popularity last year as an alternative method to fund a cryptocurrency startup, rather than the traditional venture capital route. In an ICO, a startup sells its own digital token, typically for later use in the ecosystem the startup plans to build; buyers pay for the token in the cryptocurrencies bitcoin or ether. In the majority of cases, companies that do ICOs have not yet launched any product. Think of an ICO as buying chips for use in a casino that hasn’t been built yet.

It is hard to say precisely how many ICOs occurred during the past four years. ICO Alert says it has tracked more than 5,000 but publicly displays only 3,400 “legitimate” ones. CoinDesk, a leading bitcoin trade publication, lists only 800 in the past two years. More than $20 billion has been raised in ICOs to date, but the ICO boom peaked in January 2018. Concerns over the legality of token sales have had a chilling effect.

The core issue now for every company that did an ICO: Was its “token” a security? And if it was, did the company register its offering with the SEC, or ensure that it qualified for an exemption?

SEC sees most ICOs as securities offerings—and companies failed to comply

Many of the companies that did ICOs called their offering something else, such as a “utility token” or a “SAFT” (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens, an ICO method in which investors buy a reservation for tokens yet to be launched), but the SEC does not care about those labels. It weighs each ICO on a case-by-case basis.

In July 2017, the SEC announced that it viewed the tokens offered by The DAO, an ICO that raised more than $150 million in 2016, as securities. Then, at a Senate hearing in February, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said, “I believe every ICO I’ve seen is a security.”

Capital raising through blockchain requires compliance with federal securities laws https://t.co/IjOxjoVdfK  — SEC Enforcement (@SEC_Enforcement) July 25, 2017

William Hinman, the SEC’s director of corporation finance, provided further clarity in June at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit when he said ether does not appear to be a security, but suggested that most ICOs are securities offerings, and that, “calling the transaction an initial coin offering, or ‘ICO,’ or a sale of a ‘token,’ will not take it out of the purview of the U.S. securities laws.”

Any U.S. company offering a security must register its offering with the SEC, or qualify for an exemption. Amid the ICO boom, virtually none have registered a security offering. Thus, they must meet an exemption. The SEC exemptions include selling only to investors outside the U.S., or selling only to accredited investors, which are individuals with income higher than $200,000 in each of the past two years or a minimum net worth of $1 million.

Ensuring that investors are fully accredited requires, as the SEC spells out plainly, “reviewing documentation, such as W-2s, tax returns, bank and brokerage statements, credit reports and the like.” In other words, it involves a lot more than just checking a box.

Many companies that thought they did properly limit their ICO to accredited investors are now finding out that in the eyes of the SEC, they didn’t.

Robert Cohen, chief of the cyber unit in the SEC’s enforcement division, likens it to a spectrum. When the SEC calls up a company that did an ICO and asks how the company limited its ICO to certain investors, “Some companies tell us the name of the law firm that advised them, explain the know-your-customer procedures they followed, and show us an investor list that is limited to accredited investors,” he says. “At the other end of the spectrum, some point to a website statement about limiting the ICO to some investors, and possibly checkboxes, and that’s it.”

“The law was pretty clear”

Some of the people particularly surprised to be in trouble are those who did their ICO as a SAFT, a designation that was intended specifically to be more compliant with securities law.

But some onlookers have little sympathy. Cardozo Law School professor Aaron Wright, who co-authored a paper that questioned the legality of the SAFT model, says, “There could have been other ways they could have structured it, like selling a digital good to people who actually wanted to use it, instead of predominately to speculative investors. They could have talked to the SEC first. I think the law was pretty clear that if you sell something to an investor, it’s likely a security—folks just wanted to engage in token sales, so they just kind of flouted it.”

In December 2017, the SEC shut down the $15 million ICO of a startup called Munchee and forced the company to refund the buyers. Munchee had advertised that its token would go up in value; promises of financial returns are a red flag for the SEC.

In January 2018, the SEC shut down the ICO of AriseBank, which had raised $600 million of a $1 billion goal, for falsely stating it had bought an FDIC-insured bank. In April 2018, the SEC shut down the $32 million ICO of Centra, which had been promoted by boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper DJ Khaled, for using “misleading marketing” and “paid celebrities” to make false claims. Last month, the SEC charged TokenLot, which called itself an “ICO Superstore,” with being an unregistered broker-dealer, and charged Crypto Asset Management (CAM) with false marketing and being an unregistered investment company.

Those are just some examples that the SEC announced publicly.

Behind closed doors, many more negotiations are underway. The SEC has gotten dozens of ICOs to refund buyers and pay a fine, simply by reaching out and asking questions.

We received a second subpeona from the SEC, again collecting information from us as investors in a U.S. company. The legal costs of dealing with these are not insignificant. We will not invest in any further U.S. deals until the SEC clarifies token rules. Pivot to Asia. 
— Michael Arrington (@arrington) September 28, 2018

When the SEC reaches out to companies that did an ICO, it is usually through the company’s law firm. The SEC requests a vast trove of documents related to the ICO. Yahoo Finance and Decrypt have obtained communication that the law firm Cooley, which represented many ICOs, sent to one client after an SEC subpoena. The attorney letter warns, “The SEC is likely examining whether [client] should be considered a security under the U.S. federal securities laws… For the purposes of this preservation hold, ‘document’ is defined very broadly.”

Such language is leading many companies to refund their ICOs rather than attempt a legal fight. As one source at a company that got subpoenaed says, “The last thing we want is a press release they put out with only our name on it.”

Refunding tokens

The Fan-Controlled Football League (FCFL), the first ICO to be listed on the mainstream crowdfunding platform Indiegogo (through a partnership with MicroVentures), is one example. FCFL raised $5.2 million last year. In August of this year, MicroVentures quietly returned the money to the initial buyers. 

There’s just one problem with refunding. If an ICO gathered the proper information on its buyers, and hadn’t yet launched its token, returning the money is doable. But for ICOs that have launched their token, refunding is not so simple.

“It’s not even really possible,” says Jony Levin, CEO of Chainalysis. “In a lot of cases people bought tokens in ICOs through exchange accounts at places like Kraken. So you can’t just send tokens back to the address you got them from, because that’s an exchange address. If ICOs are made to refund buyers, it will have to be similar to the Mt. Gox case: you make a public announcement and people have to prove they were a contributor.”

As a way to pacify the SEC, some ICOs are attempting to convert their utility token to a security token. Iconomi, which raised more than $10 million in an ICO, is one example. In a blog post this month, Iconomi wrote that its token holders, “will be able to exchange their ICN tokens for tokenized shares in a joint-stock company presented as eICN tokens. This new structure brings legal clarity for all stakeholders.”

Filecoin, Blockstack, Props, Origin, and TrustToken, the five ICOs that have listed on the platform CoinList, all sold only to accredited investors, and none have launched their actual token yet. A source close to Blockstack says the company sees its token as a utility, but out of caution, chose to treat it like a security and comply with all the relevant securities laws.

“Right now it feels like a massive canyon”

All of this SEC action may sound like very bad news for ICOs, but many in the industry have a more optimistic take: regulatory clarity will bring growth. In addition, more and more companies considering a token sale are now reaching out to the SEC proactively.

“I do think that businesses on the up-and-up can navigate through it, and that in just two or three years we’ll have clarity, and we’ll look back on this time as a speed bump,” says the CEO of a well-known tech company who has closely watched the ICO space. “Of course, if you’re a company that is dealing with an SEC subpoena, right now it doesn’t feel like a speed bump, right now it feels like a massive canyon.”

The lingering lack of clarity has driven a group of crypto companies, led by Ripple, to hire D.C. lobbyists to push Congress on behalf of the industry.

From the SEC’s perspective, there is no lack of clarity. The sniff tests are the same as they have been for decades. The SEC is applying the same securities laws to ICOs that it always applies.

“Everybody’s holding their breath for the SEC to create some kind of coin rule, and they’re not going to,” says a securities attorney at one high-profile Silicon Valley firm. “They’re applying the same laws, the same statutes, the same rules, to stocks and bonds and everything else.”

In other words, there’s even a lack of clarity around whether there is a lack of regulatory clarity.

Source: https://decryptmedia.com/2018/10/10/sec-tightens-the-noose-on-ico-funded-startups/

This story is a collaboration between Yahoo Finance and Decrypt, with additional reporting by Josh Quittner.

Startup Capital Not Needed, It's Blockchain-Based E-Commerce

Blockchain-Based E-Commerce Platform to Help Merchants Open Shops Without Startup Capital

From Cointelegraph by Connor Blenkinsop Sept. 6, 2018

A startup e-commerce ecosystem is turning to blockchain to help businesses become more operationally efficient, while enabling billions of users on social media “to generate income with ease.”

TIPO says it has identified three major problems facing the e-commerce market today. According to the company, many of the platforms currently dominating the industry are too focused on buying and selling when there are many other services that can benefit merchants and their loyal customers. Plus, while online payments have continued to rise, market share is yet to reach its true potential. Lastly, businesses are wasting time and money through “suboptimal logistics and warehousing operations.”

Startup Capital

Looking towards the vast user bases enjoyed by the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, TIPO argues that most visitors to such platforms haven’t been able to grasp their “limitless” monetization potential – nor have the businesses trying to reach them. As an example of how this platform wants to help everyday social media users make money, TIPO says they would be able to become sales agents for the manufacturers and merchants of products they have purchased and loved. Resultantly, they are paid money for referring their favorite items – be it a hat or a pair of shoes – to friends.

TIPO also hopes to offer advantages to every other stakeholder in e-commerce. While merchants would find it easy to open their very own shop without the need for a large amount of startup capital, the people who buy their products would get the chance to negotiate the best prices, receive tokens for their loyalty, and benefit from blockchain-based tracking methods which are designed to reduce the rates of counterfeit or fake products in the marketplace. In a nod to affiliate marketing, social media users would be paid every time someone clicks on a merchant’s link they have shared. Finally, the businesses shipping the products would also be able to reduce the risk of being given fake orders – and benefit from tools enabling them to “schedule [the] shipping time and route early and efficiently.”

Optimizing payments

According to TIPO’s white paper, e-commerce businesses have been struggling to hit the happy medium between giving users the freedom to make payments online while ensuring that merchants are paid promptly. TIPO aims to remedy this by offering “fast and immediate transactions even during weekends or holidays” and ensuring retailers receive funds as soon as customers successfully complete a transaction. This is going to be achieved through TPO tokens.

The startup is also hoping to help other small e-tailers by reducing their shipping costs and helping the high cost of sales and marketing to tumble substantially.

TIPO acknowledges that its concept can be achieved without blockchain, but argues this technology offers several benefits. For example, buyers and merchants are given the chance to rate each other, and there’s a “guarantee” that payments are processed accurately and on time, with a transaction history that’s immutably recorded. Shoppers can also benefit from healthier discounts and benefits by locking up their TPO tokens.

The future forecast

TIPO is holding an initial coin offering in several stages. A private sale concludes on Sept 20, with a presale taking place from Sept 12 to Oct 9. Finally, the ICO itself will run from Oct 10 to Nov 10.

Development on the TIPO project began in June 2017, with web development starting in August 2017 and Android development in January of this year. Work will commence on an iOS version of the platform in October, paving the way for TIPO to be released in beta come January 2019. By March 2019, it hopes to offer artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning functionality.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-based-e-commerce-platform-to-help-merchants-open-shops-without-startup-capital

Startups on Blockchain are the Next Big Thing

Six Reasons Why Startups on Blockchain is the Next Big Thing

August 22, 2018

Looking for an industry with an untapped potential on blockchain? It might be closer than you think.

Helping startups grow is a large global market. It is called crowdfunding: entrepreneurs raise funds by pre-selling their future product. If the idea is cool and resonates with the public, the authors collect enough funds to launch the product. However, it is still severely under served and is confined by embarrassing & archaic restrictions.

A crowdfunding platform that kicked off back in 2012, Boomstarter.Network is now aiming to disrupt this market with blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and even mining tools. Boomstarter has already garnered investment from a hedge fund that earlier bought Telegram and Dropbox. The fintech team is leveraging the emerging technology to break the geographical limits and remove intermediaries.

We’ve put together important data points to explore how this bold plan just might work and gain value for startups and investors alike. Let’s roll!

Size of crowdfunding market is huge

There are millions of current and potential entrepreneurs in the world willing to make their dreams true by validating their idea through pre-sale. If the product is great, the pre-sale will bring funds to develop the product. The current total volume of crowdfunding exceeds 6.5 billion dollars.

Global crowdfunding is ripe for disruption

Crowdfunding was growing rapidly: in 2017 it increased by 49% globally. However, projections for the following years show a steady slowdown. Obviously, the expected decline is due to a number of limiting factors. The demand from startups cannot be satisfied with the traditional platforms which are infamous for geographical restrictions and slow transactions.

Erasing geographical limits will skyrocket market growth

Existing crowdfunding platforms are estimated to be serving a mere one-third of the world’s startups. One of the busiest platforms, Kickstarter, only allows entrepreneurs from 22 industrialized countries. With cryptocurrencies, crowdfunding will be effective, quick and borderless. This will surge demand and participation by startups from all over the world.

Removing intermediaries will help startups thrive 

A dreaded meltdown factor of the existing crowdfunding world is waiting time for startups to receive the money from their backers. Startups wait for weeks and often cannot get the funds in time to begin developing their product according to their plan. It happens over and over again because the current system is overly dependent on third parties like banks or payment systems.

Using blockchain, smart contracts and crypto act as a medium for startups and backers to interact will reduce transaction time to minutes and guarantee payments with no intermediaries involved.

Crypto-mining as a tool driving engagement

While introducing an all-crypto platform, Boomstarter.Network says it has a plan for those who are not yet into digital currencies. The fintech company claims to offer tools to contribute cryptocurrencies to the projects by interested sponsors. The idea is to unite supporters of a given startup in a cloud-mining pool so that the amount of crypto they generate all together becomes substantial.

This is a pioneering non-material way to support startups, solving the common issue when people don’t buy, but only repost a startup’s offer on their social media. For startups, it is an interesting tool for building an active and motivated community. 

Good competition to disrupt the market with blockchain

There are other teams out there that aim to address the grievances of this expanding market. However, none of them have shown an integrated solution which also takes care of the vast audiences that have not yet embraced crypto.

With this in mind, Boomstarter.Network seems uniquely positioned to garner a big share of the global market just waiting to be disrupted. The company’s token, designed to be used as a means of payment on the platform, performs as a practical representation of value. It will be deployed to build real businesses that serve real purposes.

By providing universally accessible tools to help startups grow wherever they are, it is possible to boost demand and traction for wider adoption. This will bring positive movement to the token’s price, drawing in more entrepreneurs, supporters, and investors.

Source: https://ambcrypto.com/six-reasons-why-startups-on-blockchain-is-the-next-big-thing/

Blockchain Startup Brings in $5.5 Million in Startup Funding

Blockchain Music Startup Raises $5.5 Million in Series A Funding

August 12, 2018
https://www.ccn.com/blockchain-music-startup-raises-5-5-million-in-series-a-funding/

Blockchain startup, Audius, a decentralised, community-owned music sharing platform billed as the blockchain’s answer to Soundcloud has announced the successful completion of a $5.5 million Series A funding round as it launches the world’s first ever blockchain-based music sharing protocol. Made on August 8, 2018, the announcement revealed that the funding round was led by General Catalyst and Lightspeed, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, 122West and Ascolta Ventures.

Blockchain Startup Disrupts Traditional Music-Sharing Model

Audius describes itself as “a blockchain-based alternative to SoundCloud to help artists connect directly with fans and monetize their work.”  According to its developers, its protocol exists in perpetuity, owned and controlled by a decentralized community of artists, music lovers and developers.

The platform aims to disrupt the traditional music-sharing service model which some criticize for a perceived lack of artist control and transparency. Founder Ranidu Lankage is a Sri Lankan pop artist who is best known for going platinum at 19 with ‘Oba Magemai’, a Sinhalese hip-hop single credited with bringing in a new age of Sinhalese pop music. Following the release of his commercially successful debut album under Sony Records, he chose to go independent so as to maintain control over his work.

As part of his mission to solidify artist control over creative content, Ranidu and fellow cofounders Roneil Rumburg and Forrest Browning decided that blockchain technology had the power to give back control and creative power to artists by fixing the centralization and transparency problem. Audius was the result of this endeavor, and in between working to help artists with technology, Ranidu still finds time for the occasional performance at international events like Coachella and Ultra.

Audius Success Stories

One of the best known success stories spawned by Audius is Electronic Dance Music (EDM) artist 3LAU, who is famous in equal measure for his crytocurrency knowledge and his music. Speaking recently about his thoughts on Audius, he said:

“Artists need decentralized models for music sharing, and a stake in the platforms they contribute content to. Blockchain allows Audius to do this with tokens and decentralized voting-based governance so artists have a say in how the platform evolves. It’s a very elegant model and one which, as an artist, I find immensely attractive.”

Using Audius, artists can connect directly with fans and distribute content to them without the involvement of a middleman. Like SoundCloud, they are able to build, nurture, and engage with their fan base on the platform, but with the key difference being that their accounts are preserved permanently on a blockchain with no risk of a third party shutdown. The platform also gives artists full insight into who is streaming their content, where, and when, all in the midst of transparent, real-time payment.

Audius currently has an advisory team made up of Augur cofounder Jeremy Gardner, EDM superstar 3LAU, Pantera Capital Partner Paul Veradittakit, EA founder Bing Gordon and BitTorrent chief architect Greg Hazel.

August 12, 2018
https://www.ccn.com/blockchain-music-startup-raises-5-5-million-in-series-a-funding/