Note: The projects included in Satoshi•Fund ICO Monitor vary significantly in terms of investment risks. Before considering any investment, make sure you read the reports below carefully and take time to do your own due diligence.

Starbase

UPDATE 2: Starbase ICO is postponed. The new start date is September 5, 2017, 00:00:00 UTC.
UPDATE 1: The Starbase pre-ICO is sold out. The max target of 54M Chinese Yuan (CNY) ($8M) have been raised, meaning that the max cap for ICO will be only 13M CNY, or $2M.

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About

Starbase will be a platform for crowdfunding and crowdsourcing with a built-in wallet. For both blockchain and non-blockchain startups, the platform will provide tools to launch an ICO and issue a project’s own ERC20 token on the blockchain. For other users such as projects’ supporters or experts in any field who seek for a paid work, Starbase will serve as a job marketplace: they will be able to find paid work on the platform outsourced by startups.

Implementation

• Implemented on the Ethereum blockchain, with the platform’s own ERC20 token
• The source code of Ethereum smart contracts that Starbase will make for the startups will be open on Github, the source code of the web application will be closed
• Alpha version with a very limited functionality is available
• “Core teams” (startups) will first be checked by the Starbase company and Starbase rating partners (currently — ICOrating); teams may only start a crowdsale after a positive due diligence outcome
• The platform’s services will include global ICO support, tax and legal support
• Funds raised by core teams will only be released upon the completion of pre-defined milestones, which will be controlled on the platform
• A STAR account system will be offered to users to hold their funds: 2 of 3 multisig system, with 1 signature held by Starbase, and 2 of 3 signatures required to be able to execute any transactions with users’ funds; escrow partners can be found through a Starbase web application

Economics and token

• Platform’s native token is STAR, ERC20 compliant
• Total supply: 1 billion tokens
• Inflationary mechanism: around 2.5% per year
• Token utility
  • As a supporter you can use STAR to invest in ICOs on the platform and vote for the startups during the due diligence phase
  • As a supporter you can also stake STAR to get discounts or priority purchase rights for tokens issued by core teams on the platform
  • As a core team you pay fees for services on the platform in STARs and reward supporters for work done for your project in STARs
  • Initially, STAR token holders were supposed to be eligible for rewards, but this option is postponed due to legal considerations

Fees

• Charged when a token is issued by a core team, when a token is initially sold by a core team and when a team uses its token to reward the project’s supporters for outsourced work; other users are not charged any fees by Starbase
• Fees will be around 5–10 %

Team

The team is tech-oriented in terms of role distribution. The founder’s professional record is not long. It is not clear who will be responsible for the legal support provided to ICOs.

ICO

• Platform’s token STAR is offered for sale
• Early purchase period: already finished, 6M CNY (Chinese Yuan), or about $1M, raised
• Pre-ICO: ongoing till August 29, 2017 09:00:00 GMT; bonus rate — 30%; soft cap — 54M CNY (around $8M); pre-sale will close in 24 hours after and if the soft cap is reached
• ICO starts on September 5, 2017, 00:00:00 UTC and ends on October 14, 2017, 23:59:59 UTC; more crowdsales may come in the future (see below for details)
• Hard cap for contributions: 67M CNY ($10M USD) — for early purchase, pre-ICO and ICO altogether
• If less than 17,220,000 CNY is raised by the end of the ICO, ICO will be extended for a maximum of 75 days or until the total amount raised has reached 17,220,000 CNY, whichever happens earlier
• 125M STAR tokens (12,5% of total supply) will be sold during early purchase period, pre-ICO and ICO altogether
• Token ICO price: calculated when ICO is finished and will equal amount contributed * (125M tokens / total amount raised at the end of ICO); thus, the more funds are raised, the less the amount of tokens per individual investor; price calculator is here
• Token price bonuses
  1st ~ 7th day: 20 % bonus
  8th ~ 21th day: 15% bonus
  22th ~ 35th day: 10% bonus
  36th ~ 42th day: 5% bonus
• Token distribution
  • 75% of total STAR supply goes to Starbase company and will be used to hold new token sales for further development and marketing (not more often than once a year, 100M tokens per one crowdsale until all 750M are sold out); locked during the first year of the platform’s operations
  • 12.5 % — to early purchasers, pre-ICO and ICO investors + up to 5% as a bonus for early purchasers
  • 7.5 % — to founders and early contributors (6.25% of which will be locked), and to participants of the marketing campaigns on social media

Conclusion

• Starbase is yet another platform on the market that offers solutions to small startups that wish to launch their ICO, but its competitive advantage is not clear; the market is already dominated by a few established competitors such as Kickstarter or blockchain platforms Waves and Wings, and there is also an array of direct competitors among new smaller projects that offer similar functionality (Cofound.it, BlockStarter, ICOBox, etc.)
• Centralized organizational model; the pre-selection of projects is done by the company
• Closed application code, but smart contracts for ICO projects will be open
• The planned rewards mechanism cannot be implemented because of legal restrictions and it is unclear whether it will be replaced by any similar mechanism providing STAR token holders additional incentives
• Whitepaper is not precise enough about the fee amounts, the rating and due diligence mechanisms and a few other important aspects of implementation
• The team has no outstanding record; it is not clear who will be responsible for the legal support provided to core teams
• Token distribution is not quite predictable as 75% of tokens are reserved for future crowdsales with unspecified terms and favors the team as the team will in fact get control over around 80% of the total token supply

Useful links: website, whitepaper, Github, blog, ICO web page, STAR Token Terms and Conditions.

ACE project

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About

ACE, a project of TokenStars company, aims at developing a decentralized talent management agency — firstly, for professional junior tennis (those who have potential, but have not signed a contract yet) and later for other sports such as football, hockey, poker and basketball. The platform will support promising sportsmen by providing them initial funding (to be paid back later) and by connecting them with the platform community that will be financially incentivized to provide sportsmen various services to boost their career. ACE platform will also allow celebrities to connects with fans, e.g. fans will be able to spend the platform’s ACE token on hours of training, match tickets, video-chats with celebrities, etc.

Implementation

• The ACE token holders can support tennis players in three ways:
  • “Scouts” will do the initial search for talents and will get rewards for their work
  • Analytics, or simply all ACE token holders, will participate in the platform-wide voting to select the best candidates
  • “Promoters” will then help sportsmen to find sponsors and do the PR-work, and will get rewards for their work; the ACE agency (the company) will attract sponsors as well
• When sportsmen’s career goes up and players start to earn from sponsorships and advertising, they pay the initial funding provided by the ACE agency back in ACE tokens (the details of the pay-back procedure are not specified); the initial funding is provided by the ACE Agency from the funds raised during ICO
• In terms of technical implementation, the platform has no Github repo at the moment and it is not clear whether the platform code will ever be open; the whitepaper does not provide details of technical implementation either (although the economic model is thoroughly described); the beta version is to be released in Q4 of 2017

Economics and token

• Platform’s native token: ACE token, ERC20 compliant
• Total supply: 165M ACE tokens
• Utility:
  • Access to the platform’s full functionality and means of payment for sportsmen-related services such as purchasing advertising with the sportsman, exclusive communication rounds, exclusive offers on games’ visits, personal trainings, tickets, etc.
  • Right to participate in decentralized voting on different issues, among other, on the ACE Agency’s activities
  • Scouts and promoters receive rewards in ACEs for the services provided to sportsmen
• Fees
  • Submitting a player application by a scout or a sponsorship opportunity by a promoter will cost 1 ACE
  • See pp. 31–33 in the whitepaper for a detailed price list for all opportunities on the platform
• Rewards
  • Scouts and promoters will be compensated per each action in their role in pre-defined compensation amounts in ACE; for instance, if a promoter finds a sponsor who agrees to sign a sponsorship contract with a player, the promoter will receive 10% commission of the first contract and 2% of the following deals; see pp. 27 and 28 of the whitepaper for other compensation amounts
  • ACE Agency (the company) will also receive compensations: a commission rate of 20% of the players’ net prize money excluding local taxes and 20–25% sponsorships’ revenue; before the ACE agency’s initial funding is paid back, the Agency will receive up to 75% of the prize money and sponsorship revenue.

Team

The ACE management have strong professional profiles. For instance, founder Pavel Stukolov is a former Strategy and M&A Director at Sistema Mass Media and he also worked at the investment firm Nord Capital. CMO Irina Shashkina previously worked as CMO at Groupon Russia, as a Business Development Executive at Rambler&Co and held a few more similar positions. As to developers, there is only one developer besides CTO listed on the website.

ACE has two advisory boards, a business one and a tennis one. Both look trustworthy in terms of experience. Curiously enough, Veronika Kudermetova, one of the ACE tennis advisors combines this role with that of the first signed player on the future ACE platform.

ICO

• Platform’s token ACE is offered for sale
• Pre-ICO
  • Is ongoing from August 1, 2017, and will last till August 31, 2017
  • Minimum purchase volume: 5 BTC in ACE equivalent
  • Token price: 1 ACE = 0.0001 BTC
• ICO will start on September 10, 2017 at 19:00 UTC and end on October 31, 2017 or when the hard cap is reached, whichever earlier
• Hard cap for contributions: $7,500,000 in BTC equivalent (including funds raised during pre-ICO)
• 99M ACE tokens (60% of total supply) will be sold during pre-ICO and ICO altogether
• Minimum purchase volume for ICO: 1 ACE
• Token price: 1 ACE = 0.0001 BTC; no bonuses
• Token distribution date: November 7, 2017 or sooner
• Token distribution
  • 60% of total ACE supply goes to pre-ICO and ICO investors
  • 20% — to team, partners and advisors
  • 20% — retained for the platform’s community (scouts, promoters and regular token holders)

Сonclusion

• The idea to transform the existing sports agency model into a decentralized talent management is in itself a challenging one
• The whitepaper provides a lot of details on the economic model and marketing research; however, the economic model seems somewhat artificial; the process of raising a successful player will be a long one and may not necessarily go smoothly, meaning that the financial returns of the proposed model can be delayed in time a lot
• Large companies may not wish to sign any contracts in ACE tokens which will disrupt the ACE business model; the project currently has only one signed contract with a player
• A lot of questions of implementations remain, e.g. how exactly the players will return the initial funding to the ACE agency
• The role of blockhain is not described and is not clear at all; details of the technical implementation are absent; the source code is not available
• The team leaves a mixed impression: strong management, but only two tech people
• To sum up, a nice concept, but the feasibility is in question

Useful links: website, whitepaper, blog.

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