Venture Capital ·

How cryptocurrency can help startups get investment capital | Ashwini Anburajan

- 26 Comments.

We’re living in a golden era of innovation, says entrepreneur Ashwini Anburajan — but venture capital hasn’t evolved to keep up, and startups aren’t getting the funding they need to grow. In this quick talk, she shares the story of how her company became part of an entirely new way to raise capital, using the powers of cooperation and cryptocurrency.

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26 Comments on “How cryptocurrency can help startups get investment capital | Ashwini Anburajan”

  1. You forgot to mention that crypto is also a big oppurtunity for literally anybody to invest and not only the rich people. Right now if one wants to invest he needs to have large sums of money, in crypto anybody with any amount can invest and make 100x their investment with no middle men involved, or any other burocracy

  5. There are many ways of democratizing capital, without the destructiveness of cyrpto-currencies. Please wake up from this scam.

  6. If cryptocurrency had only one flaw. The very real flaw that it consumes vast amounts of electricity. It should be enough for all countries in the world to make it illegal on conservation grounds. Bitcoin and it's ilk are bad for the survival of the human species.

  7. It is our choices, Hary, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. (J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter)
    Success is not final, failure is not fatal: ıt is the courage to continue that counts. (Winston Churchill)
    Your life is in your hands, to make of it what you choose.
    If the economists understood the economy, they would all be rich.
    What happens if you press money? If you have gun power, nothing happens.
    There's no law that the rich don't want.
    People were created to be loved, and things to be used. The cause of chaos in the world; things are loved and used by people.

    "Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children. (The Noble Qur'an. Surah Hadid. Verse:20)
    Listen to the voice of the Noble Quran.
    Maybe your life will be changed If God allows.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVY8pwx9B74
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omh4oG8T_Fw
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWTxB6oS6I

  8. As long as regulators will allow startups to sell equity through ICO's (therefore also changing the name of this process to STO – security token offering) then all is fine. But regulators are mostly stifling this new technology. That's the real issue, not scam ICO's. Startups are creating all these useless utility tokens because they're not allowed to sell security tokens.

  9. Content
    I liked your introduction very much. You told us a story that illustrated the problem. You led us to your question: what is the goal of entrepreneurship.

    I'm not a fan of the graph's format that you used. The best thing about it is that the heading told us what the graph's point was. But it was too long to read and still pay attention to you, and it had more in it than your message. A better title would have been "ICOs Surpass VC Funding In Summer 2017. I also lost time looking at the various levels of the bars for VC funding, and that's not part of your story. And, do the different shades of blue for VC bars mean anything or are they just colored for decoration and distraction? Overall, the graph deflects attention away from you. To improve it, I would remove the numbers on the left axis because the amounts aren't important in your presentation. I'd change the VC from a series of bars to just a line. Then, we're less tempted to analyze what's happened to VC for the past year. Either leave the ICO bars as bars or convert it to a thick line. Personally, I'd like to keep the bars to emphasize that your story is about the ICO story. I would also make the VC line grey and make the ICO bars a brighter blue to bring our attention to those bars. Then, if you really want to emphasize the size of ICO investment in the summer, put labels of $200mm, $600mm, and $300mm at the top of the last three bars.

    You did an exceptional job helping me to relate to you in the presentation. When you introduced us to ICOs, you used the term and then jumped to the story of Tequila Friday. Just as I was starting to feel frustrated that you hadn't defined ICOs, you asked the same question that I had and then answered it.

    I didn't like the second graph showing the potential returns. Again, there was too much there, and you didn't really want us to look at the chart because you didn't pause while we looked at it, and you didn't go through it and explain it. I think it would've been effective to eliminate the legend and have three slides, with one, two, and then all three lines, and build the graph in front of us as you told us that the first line represents typical VC returns, the second line represents VC with lower fees, and that the third line presentens a bundled ICO-offering's returns. The problem with the legend is that the middle line has to much text to distract us, and the third says 22x fund without explaining what 22x is, and you didn't reference that term either. Is 22x just the name of your fund? Is 22x representing 22 times some other return? And what does the x-axis represent? Is this the actual performance of the fund in the ten months since it's been started, or is it some projection of the next ten years?

    I felt that you had an odd ending, and I'm undecided whether I like it or not. It's as if you had two endings. In the first one, you wrapped up by explaining that this creates a virtuous cycle of capital and an access to opportunity. I was motivated and ready for the applause, but you turned that ending into a transition to another ending about other entrepreneurs inventing new ways to access capital. To me, that wasn't the strength of your topic. I thought that the topic's strength is that your bundled ICO has returned stock investment to the conceptual roots of corporations by letting lots of investors pool their resources to fund a company. Your presentation showed that this is possible, and I'm more optimistic about other bundles of companies using your model to find capital than I am that there are many more innovative ways to fund startups. (I'm also curious how or if the SEC exercises its control if the bundle is using cryptocurrency to bypass the traditional stock exchanges.)

    Delivery
    You have a very smooth delivery. The gestures are smooth and appropriate. Your voice is melodious and, to me, expresses excitement and enthusiams more than trying to sell me on something. That was very effective for me.

    You walked around enough to look comfortable but not so much to be distracting. I like that you would go to an area and talk from there and then move to another area and talk from there. Repeat.

    I didn't notice any distracting habits, and you looked very comgortable and natural speaking to us.

    Overall, you had a wonderful speaking style and presented your content in a very interesting way. The only advice I have is to work with a visaualization specialist / slide designer in the future.

  14. The difference between a utility and security token was not even mentioned. What would be the use of your token (what you called currency) if it is not embedded in your app?

  19. Ok lemme just take your money, deposit it into your account, place an order for 1 million doge co…..aaaaaannnd it’s gone.

  20. She compared it to stocks, but you don't actually own any of the company or have a say in what they do. You just have to hope they give value to that token somehow, and they usually do not.

  23. Next Subject Of Note:
    How Cryptocurrency Can Automate Democracy To Create A More Just Society

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