Meet the first companies tokenizing their equity on Blockchain

Neufund
Neufund
Published in
9 min readJun 20, 2018

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Before Neufund, VC companies were only able to invest in traditional equity instruments. Now, Neufund’s equity tokens serve as equity instruments, empowering those with limited investing capital to use fractional ownership as a means of investing. One share has the potential to be represented by one million equity tokens, and can be held by anyone from a 90-year-old grandmother to major VC firms like Sequoia Capital. The first-ever companies that will tokenize their equity come from a wide range of industries (Internet of Things, fintech, banking, biotech and the automotive industry), countries (Germany, India, Sweden, Switzerland and more) and are in various growth stages (seed, series A, series D and more), offering investors a diverse selection.

Here are the first six companies that are tokenizing their equity

Brille24

Brille 24 is a leading online optician in Germany. Founded in 2007 and online since 2008, Brille24 has sold more than 2 million glasses and is currently serving millions of customers. The brand positions itself as an eyewear pioneer aiming to change the way people access eye care with smart AI-applications. The company currently operates online stores in Belgium, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland and Spain. The current CEO is Christophe Hocquet and the Managing Director is Johannes Korves.

It is always a challenge in Europe to finance innovation. Traditional processes are limited and complicated, especially for private and small investors, so at the end, most of the big innovations are done in the USA or China. We hope the ETO is a new way of matching the spirit of the Silicon Valley, giving anyone a chance to participate to innovations and get entrepreneurs the financial support they need.” — Christophe Hocquet, CEO at Brille24

Brille24 has made it its mission to develop their Eyetech project and build an online eye-exam (DDR — direct digital refraction) which will allow customers to virtually try on glasses. They already have a working prototype, as well as established R&D partnerships with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Oldenburg University.

This is how the AI enabled app from Brille24 looks like

The company serves customers in over 117 countries. Brille24 is already a mature startup in its series D stage and is planning to conduct ETO on Neufund to raise funds to support their Eyetech project development.

Time for Growth tends to invest in disrupting business models, very creative companies and top management teams. Brille24 has fulfilled all expectations in terms of innovation and growth, especially talented at fast implementing ideas into reality.” — Jean Luc Cyrot, Time for Growth

To learn more about Brille24 follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Uniti

Uniti is a Swedish electric car startup offering what CNBC has called “the car of the future.” Their mission is to make the best cars for the world by balancing the needs of society with an inspired driving experience. Safe & affordable EVs with premium technology and a progressive design — it’s what they do. Beginning in 2019, Uniti will go to market throughout northern Europe with its 2-seat city EV, the Uniti One. This 100% electric car is purpose-built for the needs of the urban commuter, offering comfort, connectivity and a digital cockpit interior for a price of under €20,000. The Uniti One will be sold directly online or via one of their Uniti pop-up stores within consumer electronics retail locations such as MediaMarkt. Once this will prove successful in northern Europe, they would then look to quickly expand to markets including China, India, and the United States with the assistance of their network of global partners. The Uniti One has generated over €50 million in pre-order value since they debuted their prototype last December and has been featured favorably in numerous international news outlets and publications including CNN, The Guardian, Forbes, and Wired.

The Uniti team fully embraced the Industry 4.0 vision of a digitized supply chain to be more efficient, agile, and customer-focused. Working together with Siemens and leveraging their PLM has made software a vital component of bringing their vehicles to market. So far Uniti has raised their seed round. Funds raised on Neufund will be used toward the completion of Uniti’s production model vehicle and their first ten public test-drive cars.

To learn more about Uniti follow them on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram or contact directly via eto@teamuniti.com

mySWOOOP

mySWOOOP is an omni-channel re-commerce platform. It distinguishes itself from other platforms through its tailored software technology. mySWOOOP automatically determines current market prices in real-time assuring attractive resale-margins.

“Performing an innovative trading approach of combining online and offline sourcing and sales channels, mySWOOOP plays a key role on our digital agenda — tradition meets innovation.”Melchers Group

In 2017 mySWOOOP was among the 50 fastest growing tech companies (ranked 25th by Gründerszene) with a Sales CAGR of 215% between 2014 and 2016. mySWOOOP was founded in 2011 by Benjamin Gabriel, Simon Gabriel and Jan-Lucca Sielski. mySWOOOP is currently on a series B stage and plans another fundraising round on Neufund.

mySWOOOP’s CEO Jan-Lucca Sielski

We are building the Re-Commerce platform of the future. Having grown with an average annual sales growth of more than 170%, we generated net sales of 4.6 Million in 2017 and are ready to scale in 2018. — Jan-Lucca Sielski, CEO at mySWOOOP

To learn more about mySWOOOP follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or join them on Telegram.

Next Big Thing

As Europe’s premier startup incubator for IoT & blockchain and Germany’s chosen Digital Hub for IoT, Next Big Thing (NBT) drives European innovation. NBT leverages its technological and economic ecosystem to enable disruptive business models.

NBT has successfully launched numerous ventures across diverse industries while developing their own tech stack in blockchain and secure hardware. The NBT ecosystem consists of investors, startups, corporate partners, hardware and software engineers, and technology providers.

“As IoT will significantly change service and industry structures, NBT offers early participation in this disruptive opportunity. They convinced me with their clear focus, proven track record, and professional attitude. The concept and structure are purposefully goal-oriented.” — Rudi Ludwig, Investor

NBT’s Founder and CEO Harald Zapp

“Companies and entire economies depend on the readiness and capacity for innovation. Competition for talent and ideas decides the future, with digital data as future - development currency. NBT AG and Neufund support this leap for the digital revolution.” — Harald Zapp, founder, and CEO of NBT

NBT plans to create an NBT IoT Lab, which will function as a playground for pioneers. Next Big Thing is preparing for a series A funding round and will conduct its fundraising on Neufund to support their ambitious plans. To learn more about NBT follow them on Linkedin, Twitter, and Medium.

Emflux Motors

Emflux is building an electric superbike changing the landscape of transportation and mobility. The India-based venture was already backed by both crypto and traditional investors with a mission to power 10 million electric bikes in India by 2027. Emflux Motors was founded in 2016 by Varun Mittal, Ankit Khatry, and Vinay Raj Somashekher.

“Conducting an ETO helps with raising funds by utilizing the collective power of the masses instead of relying on traditional VCs who tend to mostly invest in certain sectors according to their investment thesis. Retail/ crypto investors are more forthcoming in investing in the future.” — Varun Mittal

“Emflux is building a maximum performance electric sports bike. I have been consistently impressed by the speed and quality of their execution. They have a chance to build a global brand as the world transitions to electric vehicles.” Brian Fabian Crain, co-founder of Chorus One and founder of Epicenter.tv.

“The Emflux ETO is a great opportunity to finance a game-changing team in the Indian electric vehicles space. The company is deploying the Tesla model of moving from high end to mass market vehicles in the humungous Indian two-wheeler segment.” — Meher Roy, co-founder of Chorus One and host at Epicenter.tv.

Emflux is on to its series A stage and will conduct their next round on Neufund. To learn more about the project follow Emflux on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

BlockState

BlockState is creating products for the future of finance. The Swiss company is building efficient, transparent and compliant products for asset management, debt issuance and derivatives based on blockchain technology. It was founded in 2017 by Michael Weber and Paul Claudius. The BlockState executive team & advisory board comprises of seasoned experts from Credit Suisse, Google, FTSE, Houlihan Lokey, Perella Weinberg, PWC, SMBC Nikko, Airbnb and the Humboldt University.

BlockState’s founders on the opportunities of Blockchain for trade

“BlockState is on a mission to digitise financial products through Blockchain technology. Using Neufund’s ETO model for our funding strategy was an obvious choice, since not only are we convinced that the digitization of equity provides numerous tangible benefits for us and investors, but Neufund shares our vision of a fairer, more efficient and inclusive financial market.” — Michael Weber, Founder of BlockState

To learn more about BlockState follow them on Facebook and Twitter. In this blogpost they introduce BlockState to you in detail. To meet the founders and ask them direct questions join their Telegram group.

What’s next

Updated Version. Along with the six companies listed above, we will on-board and announce in the upcoming weeks the names of a few more companies among them are:

  • Founders Bank. A founders focused bank empowering tech and crypto providing progressive banking solutions for investors and inventors.
  • German biotech startup introducing precision prevention with DNA healthcare applications. Featuring genome sequencing technologies.
  • Fintech developing solution provider for transacting fiat currencies over blockchains.

“Decentralized, transparent and legally-binding public offerings are a needed evolution in the fundraising world, as one that combines the advantages of traditional IPOs, VC rounds and ICOs,” says Zoe Adamovicz, Co-Founder and CEO at Neufund. “Neufund accelerates the way we invest and the way we invent, making it possible for VC companies, and private and corporate investors to commit within the same round. Neufund has been often compared to Nasdaq, but, we are nothing like Nasdaq: we’re better. We are decentralized, transparent and owned by the community. Now, with the announcement of the fast-growing and innovative companies that will conduct the first ETOs with us, we make a strong step towards a superior, more fair and more inclusive economy. We are the disruption that can influence the future of the fundraising process for the better.”

Got excited about the companies ETOing on Neufund? So are we! To participate in the upcoming first ETOs on Neufund you can already register now and get your identity verified, so you are ready to go once the first ETO starts.

Visit our subreddit to join the conversation and read all the information you need about Neufund in this post. Or join our telegram chat if you have questions or want to meet the Neufund community and team. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates. You can sign up here to become a registered investor.

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Fintech startup with a mission to open the world of finance: create new markets and bring together assets, investors, and entrepreneurs.