The lack of proper funding is the biggest issue holding back new innovation and projects
that have the potential to change and improve our society.
With the reality is that crowdfunding is still a closed shop, with the main platforms rejecting
the vast majority of projects, selecting those that fit limited, self-serving criteria. Like any
great idea, crowdfunding has suffered in practice from a protectionism that denies its
better values in principle.
A situation whereby emerging markets and less economically developed countries are denied access to
the largest platform. Criteria are set for creativity and a minimum number of backers.
From their roots as free access markets, the larger platforms have limited crowdfunding by implementing restrictions that approach the stringency of venture capital or bank loans. For projects that do make it through, there is little support and a fee of 5-10% for minimal service.
Out of all these, Acorn Collective promises to create a platform that truly supports founders. We want to accept and
support rather than reject and ignore. Acorn will never reject a legal and ethical
project (see our project approval criteria) - if founders can find backers, they
deserve a platform that will support them.
Traditional crowdfunding platforms are themselves funded traditionally - funds come
from outside equity shareholders who want returns through company profits. This
makes them allocate resources only to where they can achieve the most earnings,
charging fees and conceivably giving rise to more restrictive project approval criteria.
At Acorn, this is different - There is no obligation to generate platform profits for outside
shareholders.
ICO participants and other token holders, including the company, are rewarded by
growth of the ACO ecosystem.
We intend to achieve this growth by offering crowdfunding for free and a much less
restrictive project approval policy.
Our Competitive Advantages
We are completely free for our users - Other platforms charge between 4% to 10%
in fees.The crowdfunding market is still in its infancy, with a potential to reach anything
from USD 90B to 1 trillion per year by 2025 (World Bank, 2013; MyPrivateBanking,
2015). We’ll allow most legal projects to list on our platform irrespective of where the
project originates from and irrespective of each project’s type. Project types could
include but are not limited to commercial, creative, research, charity and personal
causes. We wish to expand project exposure in new markets where previous access
and competition are low.Goods from successful projects can automatically be listed and sold on the Acorn
Marketplace with no fees for campaign founders.
1.3 A Note on Emerging MarketsSubject to the success of our ICO, we have designed Token Growth & Stability
Mechanisms (more particularly described in Chapter 4 of this Whitepaper) intended
to increase the value of ACO starting after token distribution. These mechanisms
include:
4.1. The Project Incentive Fund will seek to provide generous starting bonuses to
incentivize early adopters and reward recruitment of founders, backers and
token users into our ecosystem. This can be a double accelerator - not only will
the platform be free but it would also reward those generating early traction
with incredibly generous incentives. It’s a mechanism to employ a huge
marketing budget in an area where it should conceivably allow rapid growth
for the platform and token.
4.2. Our Liquidity Reserve is intended to mitigate ACO price fluctuations related to
large campaign payouts.
4.3. Subject to obtaining the required license or establishing a relationship with an
existing licensed insurer, we intend for backers to have the option of buying
Project Backer Insurance. For an additional fee, they could insure themselves
up to the full value of their commitment against the possibility of project failure.
We hope this will lower some of the objections to pledging funds.
4.4. Affiliate Rewards system: If implemented, this would provide rewards for
anyone who can successfully recruit new users to participate in our platforms
and therefore use ACO and our ecosystem.
4.5. Frictionless ACO Purchases: We intend to connect with the APIs of exchanges
and popular wallets to integrate them into our platform, creating a frictionless
transaction environment.
4.6. Partnerships: We intend to actively explore partnerships with campaigns
created on Acorn Hub as well as 3rd party platforms to integrate ACO and
increase its utility
4.7. ACO listing: We will endeavour to achieve an early listing of the ACO token
on digital currency exchanges, shortly after completion of the ICO. This would
ensure contributors have a viable exit strategy as well as to allow new users into
our ecosystem.All of the above features and systems are intended to generate demand for the ACO
token in the face of a permanently fixed supply.
For more information, visit:
Website: https://aco.ai
Acorn Collective's [ANN] thread on BitcoinTalk
Facebook page: https://facebook.com/TheAcornCollectiveICO
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AcoCollective
My Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1275173
ETH Address: 0x2eddf2a4f0fb0665856852e0580a947716b9d268