7+1 good reasons and proof why this is the most undervalued ICO (hint: it is backed by the father of ICOs)

As part of my research I regularly check whitepapers, hang out on telegram groups and conduct additional research by checking the facts and digging deeper. Over the weekend I stumbled across this project, which to my suprise is not very well known in the community. The website of the project does not a really good job in communicating the strengths of the project, so I decided to share my findings.

Before we start, a look at the product: NASDAQ 2.0

The product is a fundraising platform for startups or bigger companies, which is owned by the platform token hodlers. You can think of it as a community owned NASDAQ/ stock exchange. Companies get funded, you, in exchange, get real, legally binding equity in this companies - just like share in Amazon or Apple. In other words, the platform will put NASDAQ and other exchanges out of business.

1. It’s not an ICO but an ICBM - You have a ETH-back-guarantee

It is not an ICO but a initial capital building mechanism (ICBM) .This basically means that the team does not have access to your contributed ETH. After submitting your funds to the ICBM you are still in control. You have three options what to do with your committed funds.

1. Invest into startups and receive legally binding equity in this startups as soon as the platform is operational - early next year.
2. If you don’t find a startup that is worth investing into, you can withdraw your funds at any point in time with a processing fee of 10% .
3. Withdraw 100% of your funds (no processing fee) after 18months. This also forces the team to make the platform successful and profitable by then the very latest, otherwise all the investors will withdraw their money.

2. NASDAQ alone made a net revenue of $2 billion with this business model - in one year

The platform is kind of a stock exchange like NASDAQ on blockchain. Early next year the platform will be operational. Startups will use it to seek funding from investors. You as an investor can then decide to invest into those startups. If you invest in one of those startups, you will receive equity - just like buying an Amazon stock at an exchange. The equity you receive is tokenized, this means it is like a stock/ company share represented by a Equity Token. You can then decide to trade it or hodl and receive dividends - just like you would do with an Apple stock.

Startups who seek funding through the platform pay transaction fees to the platform. So far this is a proven and working business model that applies to most stock exchanges in the world - for example NASDAQ which reported net revenues of $2 billion and net income of $499 million in 2014.

In addition to this the platform keeps a small portion of equity of each startup that was funded. This means that the platform owns a growing and diversified portfolio of company shares. Platform tokens hodlers own the platform - therefore benefit from each transaction and own a portion of the portfolio.

3. You pay once and earn twice

As an investors who commits funds in this ICBM you receive platform tokens, but you also stay in control of your ETH. You can invest those ETH in startups in exchange for equity tokens - starting early 2017. If you do so, you will have platform tokens and equity tokens. Both tokens can earn you money.

Platform tokens

1. Sell you platform tokens just like any other token from an ICO as soon as they are listed on exchanges.
2. Hodl your tokens. When hodling you earn with each transaction on the platform and from a growing equity portfolio. The portfolio will grow with each startup that gets funded on the platform.

Equity tokens

1. Sell them on an exchange.
2. Hodl them and earn money from dividends you get from the startup

4. Your risk is very limited, nearly risk free

The team as well as the smart contract states, that only the investors have access to the money contributed in the ICBM. You can invest it later into startups, withdraw it immediately after the ICBM (with a processing of 10%) or wait 18 months and withdraw it without any processing fee. Of course you will need to give back your platform tokens if you withdraw your committed funds.

5. Limit your risk of hodling ETH

As stated above you are in control of you committed ETH. This means if ETH goes up in value, more than the platform tokens, you simply withdraw your ETH and give back the platform tokens. If the platform tokens grow faster then ETH you keep them ;-)

6. A rockstar team with proven track record

Zoe Adamovicz (LinkedIn) and Marcin Rudolf (LinkedIn) are successful serial entrepreneurs that founded and sold at least one company to a NASDAQ-Listed enterpriseand funded multiple more successful companies as you can see on their LinkedIn profiles or at CrunchBase. More than this, Zoe Adamovicz is a seasoned business angle, board member of multiple companies and will be speaking at this years TechCrunch Disrupt.

But this endeavour is not only about business and technology. At its very core this is about a lot of legal issues since they are transforming the company shares into tokens. So of course they have some smart lawyers on their team. Andre Eggert is a well know lawyers specialized in Mergers & Acquisitions and financing transactions. You can learn more about his legal framework for the platform in a publication at Harvard Law School Forum or watch him explaining the basic at YouTube. The second lawyer is Jacek Czarnecki (LinkedIn) who studied at the University of Oxford and it is a frequent contributer to CoinDesk.

7. Top-Notch Venture Capitalists

Michael Jackson, not the one you think of ;), from early-stage Skype-Investor Mangrove Capital & Board Director at Blockchain.com

Alexander Lange from Earlybird. Earlybird invested into more than 130 companies and exited 26. Among other companies they are an investor in the very well-established ShapeShift.io.

Germany's Shark-Tank Investor Frank Thelen from Freigeist Capital. Not only that Frank is one of the most known investors in Germany, his fund exited Wunderliste, myTaxi and even invested into Lilium, a company that build flying cars.

7+1. Expert crypto advisors including “The Father of the ICO“

Max Kordek is the President of the Lisk Foundation. Lisk has currently a market cap of $1 228 758 458 USD. Here is a video of Max explaining why he supports this project.

Julian Zawistowski, CEO and founder at Golem Factory. Golem has currently a market cap of $353 649 574  USD.

Fabian Vogelsteller creator of the Ethereum-Wallet, the Mist browser, one of the 35 people at the GitHub Ethereum project and “The Father of the ICO”.

Risks

As with any other ICO there are risk, there might be a bug or the model does not work out for whatever reason. As you can see above I have great trust in the project, but you shouldn’t because you didn’t do the research - I did and you don’t know me. Take this as a starting point and do your own research.

Conclusion

If you would like to verify some of the not directly linked claims, You can ask in the project’s Telegram group or, and this is something you should do anyway, read the whitepaper. The whitepaper is about 60 page heavy but it is worth investing the time.

So far the project collected nearly 19.000 ETH. The ICBM ends on the 17th of December 2017. If this all sounds interesting to you check out Neufund.

If you would like to see a sneak peak of the product, you should check out this Medium post.