David Gold ~ Funding, Grants & Capital 3 0 for Blockchain Companies dapix io

[Music] foreign all right we're ready to get going here with the funding panel should we do the clap three times things all right if you can hear me clap three all right one more time if you can hear me clap three times One Last Time really loud if you can hear me clap three times all right good all right we're ready to go with a great panel here on funding I'm David gold I'm with the Theo protocol uh we are making uh decentralized transactions easy enough to use at your web surfing grandma could use them or we're working with a growing list of wallets and exchanges that are partnering with us to do that I'm gonna first just have everybody go around on the panel here and quickly in like a minute or two introduce yourselves tell us your organization and what your organization does at a high level okay yeah I'm Griff green I work with uh dap node and item 3 but I think in this talk the focus is where I spend most of my time which is with uh giveth giveth is a thank you yeah uh give it as a community focused on blockchain for good we have had a lot of really awesome projects come through our platform most notably dap node and bright ID and we're trying to make it easy for everyone to coordinate around funding and see uh responsible funding we actually are just about to push our last main release on the give it dap kind of our Flagship product so we'll be feature complete and we're really excited to see foundations and other organizations within this space use it to coordinate uh choosing where to send the funds in an even way you know so thank you hi I'm Hannah Parsons with exponential impact excellent we call it XI XI is an early stage technology accelerator and focusing on emerging Technologies such as blockchain we are structured as a non-profit entity um but we have created a partner seed fund that is for-profit that operates as a social Enterprise so when companies are accepted into our accelerator program they can expect to to get between Thirty and fifty thousand dollars in seed funding that's negotiable and then as the fund makes money over time since there's nobody taking a cut or a carry about 10 percent of that fund goes back to support the overall ecosystem so our goal is really to give early stage companies in emerging Technologies the longest runway possible and the greatest chance of success hi my name is Amin solamani I'm the CEO of spank chain we did an Ico and raised some money late 2017. um I'm also the Summoner of a dow called Malik and it is was launched yesterday here actually and it's trying to uh basically get people to fund Community efforts to accelerate youth 2.0 and potentially the greater ethereum ecosystem eventually hi um my name is I am yaguchi executive director of the ethereum foundation the ethereum foundation supports core infrastructure level uh project development research to improve ethereum by by giving grants and doing Communications and education and organizing.com great thank you why don't we start with you um tell us a little bit more if uh entrepreneur or a project wants to try and get funding from the eve Foundation how do they go about applying for Grants how do you make your decisions on the projects you're going to fund sorry it's it's hot it's a little bit hard to hear it's hard to hear me is that better yeah so I said tell us a little bit about if there's a project that's that is interested in trying to get funding from the Youth Foundation how do they go about applying for a grant and what's the decision process that you use to decide who to give grants to um so we have application form that people can apply again our main focus is core infra level of research development project um but we are we are more flexible now and and only generally when we started doing give give grants more grants starting last year um the main focus was what we suggested here's the list wish list scaling security usability and um in privacy and all that that um but you can you can if you think you're creating great impact to your team you can apply and then the screening process is we do have of course we do have internal developers and researchers to help um the decision making but we also actually invite some community members to be part of it now so that we can make best decisions great I mean tell us more about the Dow that you've launched and uh and and tell us how that can play into the funding needs of of companies or projects yeah um so we're launching the Dow uh well we launched it yesterday uh and the idea is to get people who are in ethereum who want to contribute but may not necessarily uh want to go through the ethereum foundation uh to be able to basically discuss what to fund and how much it deserves um the structure is a little novel um so there is no concept of like giving a set amount of Grants um basically everybody pools their ether and then proportionally dilutes themselves in order to give grants so you earn some fraction of the voting shares and then if you want you can liquidate that and you sacrifice your ability to vote on future proposals but then you get um you know the money and can the money be given to both for-profit and not-for-profit projects or Endeavors so it's starting as just a grants to just accelerate like a 2.0 because that's sort of one of the areas that you know you see the italic like YOLO a thousand eight to three teams because it became obvious to him that there was still low-hanging fruit that could benefit from additional funding and that got you know one of the core team members of Prismatic labs to like leave Google um and so at first I think we want to focus on there it's the type of thing that everybody in the space depends on uh but it's sort of hard to fund um and because ethereum is structured that none of the inflation rewards go to developers or to a foundation like the EF to distribute all funding for the continued protocol development has to either come from the EF or on a voluntary basis from all etholders great thank you Hannah so you're with exponential impact which is an accelerator talk to us a little bit about the difference for a startup company of sort of going it alone versus you know jumping into any accelerator yeah so I think uh it depends really is the answer I think there are there are a lot of accelerators out there there are a lot of excel there we go there were a lot of accelerators out there and I think people need to be really thoughtful when they apply to go into them to find out what is the real goal of the accelerator so for exponential impact our our goal is to grow to grow early stage companies um specifically in Colorado but it's not a requirement that companies stay in Colorado and so for for hours we for example were just recently awarded a Federal Grant from the economic development Administration to grow second and third stage programs because when you're talking about companies in AI or blockchain where they it takes it takes longer than a traditional accelerator to potentially build what needs to be built and so for for our companies the the Federal grant then allows us to add second and third stage programming so that we can keep companies early stage companies after the accelerator for up to 18 months and so if we can continue to build resources within the organization then that saves the companies from having to add those too quickly to their company so I think then um another opportunity with some accelerators including ours is um if people are looking for grant funding and things that are non-diluted is to really look at Partnerships with universities so Colorado specifically has a lot of programs that work with universities on the tech transfer of and commercialization of research blockchain is certainly a Hot Topic within the University Systems so if people have a product that they feel like is is beyond it's beyond proof of concept but it doesn't even have to be too much beyond that there are some of programs like ours and probably some other accelerators that can partner with the university to take that and and call it applied research and get funding to continue to build those programs so I think the real goal is sometimes I would say accelerators I can compare them to a conveyor belt so you start your kickoff and you go 12 or 14 weeks and you hit demo day and it's kind of um I say fly or die so sometimes that's it so I think that's where people really need to be careful when they're choosing what kind of program they're going into and find out if there are other grant funding opportunities or ways to keep going once demo day is over and what are some of the other criteria you would suggest to entrepreneurs that are looking at accelerators who are trying to decide between which accelerators they should consider or reply to that's a good question I think that they need to ask the question of what what does it mean when you have a mentor is the mentor really going to be there for your company because there are some accelerators I believe where the mentors are scanning on behalf of the organization to find the the winners of sorts from those programs and so I think just finding out what is the real goal what how much time are you going to have to to work on your product while you're going through the curriculum what kind of programming do they deliver is it just um are they are they really getting into helping you on the back end of your technology are they helping your sales process so I think just making sure that one they need to be really self-aware of what their needs are so if you can be really know what you need going into it what your blind spots are and make sure that that organization has it yeah great so Griff you're doing some Innovative things leveraging blockchain to help not-for-profits raise money right so sort of to help me understand what what's the difference in the experience for the non-profit organization of raising donations through your platform versus the old-fashioned way well with with give it so giveth has its main uh the DAP right it's our Flagship product and on there you don't need to be a legal entity necessarily you can actually just be a blockchain based entity and receive funding in dye or ether and you don't need to play all the bureaucratic games like if you wanted to apply for a grant from a college you know good luck you know you're going to have to play a lot of games to get to the actual point where you get money and actually can work here if you just want to be some people you want to start a dow you know you can apply for funding and you don't have to play any of those games and so then as far as getting the word out if I'm using your platform to raise money for a project or for a non-profit entity how do I get the word out so that there's actually people who are aware and and then will potentially donate yeah I mean at this stage ethereum and and all blockchain systems are pretty raw so at least our strategy is to onboard donors first so that there is money that wants to be given away in uh into the space because China just onboard a bunch of people who want money everyone wants money right I mean I I can make a million campaigns it sounds great but if there's no one to actually give it away we're actually wasting their time learning this technology and and trying to hold their hand we're wasting our time in theirs if there isn't actually money to be given away on the platform so our main goal is to figure out uh new funding streams and new funding mechanics that can realign the incentives to that inspire people to donate right now donating is uh it's It suffers from the tragedy the commons issues right anyone who donates they suffer themselves for the greater good of everyone that sucks that's stupid we can do better and we have blockchain technology and crypto Primitives so that we can use to realign the incentives and so are you guys live and has there been uh different projects and so forth that have been funded through the platform yeah actually if you want socks from makerdale there's a group that uh is asking for money for uh to help refugees it's a Grace Aid they have been working with us for a long time completely voluntary uh voluntarily run organization uh none of the people actually make money all the money goes straight to helping refugees and it's uh transparent on our platform where the donations go so uh we've actually been live for almost two years uh we ran we've run two burning man camps on the platform and giveth itself it raises money only through the platform and we have about uh 30 campaigns I'd say like 10 of them are active but it's been very beta testing and I only let we we only really let people who begged to be on the platform uh be use the platform because it it's uh it's you know working with this Tech in the beta system is it's pretty rough it's a time consuming task and we want people we want to help people we don't want to you know exploit them for our own beta testing thank you so uh lightning round now I've got a couple questions all throughout and anybody can chime in hopefully several of you will chime in so uh how do you think the downturn in the crypto markets has impacted fundraising whether for for-profits or non-profit entities I think um well any any crypto holders whether there are I mean our side we don't really be ways uh grants from others because of the nature of the crypto so as a foundation normally you Lays from other foundations will be done but so um it does it does affect our our budget situation of course and also in the same way to the project that are that receive grants or donations with crypto so it is it is the it is a challenge that the adult sustainability of Open Source especially open source projects or the projects do not have business model or project student that should not have business model how can they keep sustainable is is something we should discuss more and um it is a question that I I you know in my mind every day now but um so it does it it does affect yes but it's at the same time we see this excitement or people are actually really eager to build um and then it's it's been that way in the ethereum and it's been that way for for our side of project so I like to like like we like to help maintain this momentum like you know you know not to discourage those projects who are who are really dedicated to build um you know because they I we want than to stay open source great anybody else have any thoughts on that yeah I would say for for us and the non-profit side of things we we haven't has not negatively impacted the work that we're doing and if anything it's helped clear the noise so there's less noise so if when people for example will say what's how are you feeling about eth now or whatever it's just like feeling great because then you can have the opportunity to talk about what's being built Beyond cryptocurrencies so it's been very positive and I think um the volatility has given local local state and probably federal government the opportunity and desire to study this more so it's opened it's open the door to have bigger conversations around blockchain yeah I mean I I think that it does help in having real conversations about the technology but as far as raising funds holy crap it's horrible right like when the when the price is going up everyone's Rich you know if you had a hundred thousand one day and ether goes up ten percent you just made 10K doing nothing it's so easy to give that away it's so easy to be like well if I give away 5K I'm still up 5K on the day right but when it goes the other way and you had 100K and now you only have 90 oh man you're poor you know and it's really funny though because it it's really psychological so many people in the space have been around uh where you know last two januaries ago I guess three januaries ago ether was six dollars right the January after that it was 1400 and now we're all crying about it being in the 100 range it's a it's hard to you know you have to overcome the the like oh what have you done before me lately and look at the you know larger scale and see how how much abundance there actually is still in this space uh and I but it's it's still really hard to get people who are losing money every day to want to give it it doesn't make a lot of sense to them yeah I I would just Echo that um funding has dried up but like as a percentage of the total funding uh the funding for Meaningful projects has gone up a lot uh because there was a lot more noise so there's a lot more money for dumb stuff and now it's a little bit more focused um and it's a lot more uh infrastructure focused um it's it's more on the types of things that will uh Propel ethereum forward right if if more of the money these days is coming from like you know grants from like Aragon Nest or gnosis or it's a lot of the projects that actually themselves raised a lot of ether and now they want to see the continuation of the the platform and and the development on it right okay so things are getting a little more real and it's a little bit easier for the cream to rise to the top when there's not so much chaos in in the in the container right that smells everything yeah but one positive thing that I'm seeing and also a few excited is like just said Amin just said they started this um you know providing financial support you know it doesn't have TV so it doesn't have to be the ef ef battery doesn't own the ATM a lot of people misunderstand we don't own anything uh so we just it's one contributor uh we might be each holder but that's it so anyone can contribute and then I I'm excited that we see see more other funding you know supporters that we can work together and that collaboration is happening now that's something positive coming out of this this I don't know like some people say winter time I don't think this is the coldest I mean we've seen colder uh in crypto yeah so I think I think that that is something positive so I feel like obligated to ask the question um how do you feel that regulations in the United States have impacted fundraising in the blockchain space over the last you know year in particular um I've been um I've I've been involved in laboratory side too because of my former job but I don't I don't think it affected much it does affect um like some part of business decisions or like some part of operations because like depending on what you are doing you have to be compliant with the the regulations that you are in um but the the fundraising I mean I guess it depends on the intervention of what kind of fundraising you're doing but our side of like a giving grants or raising for your product or project that are building things for a team um it is well just because I'm saying this because the the regulatory decision that has been made uh wasn't hasn't been too critical so far and I I hope regulator is Regulators stay you know like um wise to because this is this is the opportunity this is the Innovation and they can't really affect too much anybody else have any thoughts on that yeah I would just say on the on the on the non-profit side I think not so much because the people if anything want to spend a bit more in the research side but I think um it's definitely something we have to continue to watch and as you know the Colorado blockchain Council and I think we're going to hear from Wyoming and some others later today trying to make sure there's regulatory Clarity absolutely makes a difference so when you have companies that are trying to decide if they're going to be considered a money transmitter or not and some of those things that definitely impacts their fundraising so I think right now the more that we can keep people open-minded and not move too quickly on some of those things but provide regulatory Clarity it's very helpful great I think we just have a few minutes left so last one more question let's go down the line here in like two sentences or less if you had to give one piece of advice to somebody who's raising money what would that couple sentences of advice be so think about it for a minute let the clock run collaboration I mean find other people that are also working in the same vein team up and build a big crew and find a way to collaborate so that everyone wins on the on the actual goal that you're trying to achieve awesome collaboration I would say think twice because I think people get very desperate and they think they will they they need money so badly they'll take on bad Partners or give away too much so I would just say if you really think you need to raise money most people who come to an accelerator think money is the answer and very often it's not great uh find the people who are most positively impacted by the output of your efforts and try to raise money from them first um so the ethereum foundation one of the things that we want to do differently starting this year is really um there are things that we can do other than just giving money and that's something like I want everyone to know um at least you know we can talk about what you are doing and and there are other support that we are considering so um again like I know we're supposed to talk about money but that's what we want to do um starting this year great well thank you all very much I think we're at the end of our time here it's about uh 12 30 so it's been a great panel thank you thank you thanks for having us [Applause]