Hello Steemit! We’re Acorn Collective and We’re Changing the Face of Crowdfunding

Most of us have heard of crowdfunding by now. Since the beginning of major crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo just 8 years ago (unbelievable right?), crowdfunding has become a $32 billion + industry and is expect to pass $1 trillion in the next decade.

It is easy to see why — the basic idea has revolutionised the way that projects are funded. It held an early promise that no matter what your background or connections, if you’ve got a great idea you can make it a reality.

Unfortunately, crowdfunding is not quite the shining promise of inclusivity that it may seem. Most the major platforms charge relatively high fees, and only accept projects in certain categories from certain countries (mainly western)

How are we changing crowdfunding?

We are making crowdfunding free, and accessible to all. Using the blockchain we are able to create a crowdfunding platform that's the first to be completely free and accessible in any country.

How are we able to make it free for project founders?

We use a fixed supply ERC-20 token (OAK) for all transactions in our crowdfunding hub, our post-campaign marketplace, our support services and our point-of-sales payment app.

By using an ICO as our funding model, we put the ecosystem before shareholders. Blockchain gets rid of outside equity investors who need returns and payment providers who expect fees.

In short – we’re changing the crowdfunding industry, by crowdfunding it. This means developing countries are no longer shut out.

It’s a revolution in funding access that encourages every community.

The Story So Far…

In the past few months our team has expanded rapidly, and we are making good progress towards crowdfunding our platform.

Here are just a few of the things that have happened since we first began our crowdfunding journey:

Growing List of Projects

We have had 160 + projects from all over the world, from Ghana to Canada, Korea, Bangladesh and Australia apply for our platform. Examples include:

An exoskeleton hand which can help restore mobility in injured patients hands

Family-run sustainable insect farming to replace animal agriculture

A bakery school in Nigeria which improves job prospects for people in economic hardship

Rapidly Expanding Team

Our team has doubled since the beginning of the year, so much so that we’ve outgrown our office and had to move to a new one. We’ve bought on experts from the fields of marketing, social media, content creation, community management and software development to make sure that we can create and market the best platform possible.

Alongside our full time staff we’ve got a crack team of advisors including Ian Scarffe; Blockchain and start up advisor, and David Ives; ex-CTO of Crowdcube, the world’s leading crowdfunding platform.

Raising over $1.5 million so far…

Oh yes, there’s the small matter of us already having raised $1.5 million in tokens in the first 48 hours of our pre-sale period – that’s 30% of our total target. With still 12 days yet to go we feel confident that we’re going to sail through the $5 million target with ease and head into the main ICO. Our Pre-sale finishes on 19th February.

Hot off the Press!

In the past week we’ve had a surge in press coverage as publications and influencers begin to hear about our platform

We've been featured in the Coin Telegraph on Hackernoon, the Drum and we've been consistently on the front page of ICO Benchwith an average score of 4.1 out of 5

Positively reviewed by 50k+ Crypto YouTube influencers Keith Wareing and Quentin Francoise from YoungandInvesting

There’s a lot more press in the pipeline for the coming weeks, so if you’re interested in crypto- you’ll probably notice our name pop up!

We’re excited to join Steemit, a space which seems to align very closely to our values as a platform.

Steemers – we’d love to know your thoughts on our platform, if you want to know more then take a look at our website and whitepaper and let us know what you think!