Failed shipping ICO
Lars Jensen
Leading expert in the container shipping industry. Click "Follow Me" here on LinkedIn to stay updated
Blockchain start-up 300cubits has just released details of their completed ICO, and it shows that even though blockchain is the “hottest” technology presently, this does not necessarily translate into injection of investment money.
Last year, 300cubits completed a pre-sale of their tokens which brought in 1588 ETH. Given the extreme volatility of crypto currencies the exact monetary value of this is not quite clear, but it is approximately 0.8-1 million USD.
In order to fund the ramp-up of their project, 300cubits then launched a full ICO running from mid-April to mid-May. According to their own material, the hard-cap was 12 million USD by selling 18 million TEU tokens. There was no soft-cap.
However, their newsletter released yesterday shows that the ICO only raised 421 ETH – likely equal to approximately 250.000 USD given the ICO sale price of 400 tokens per ETH.
This means a sale of 168.400 TEU tokens versus the 18 million tokens up for sale at the ICO. This equals a sale of 0.9% of the tokens offered.
In the statements from before the ICO, the company mentioned that 60% of the funds raised would be used to develop the ecosystem in relation to the TEU and 40% would be used for business operations. The company maintains that their product will launch mid-June, however how the sharply reduced funding will impact the planned development is not clear.
Hence irrespective of any potential merits of the underlying project and technology, the ICO can only be described as failing to raise the targeted capital and clearly shows that while blockchain is the “hottest” technology presently, this does not automatically equal a willingness to invest.
Edit added: Sake good order, and as can also be clearly seen from my profile, I am involved with NYSHEX which is a competitor to 300Cubits. However, as is hopefully also clear from my original text above, the focus of this posting is not related to the technical viability nor the competitive pros and cons of 300cubits. What to me is interesting in this context is that we appear to be seeing a shift in the sentiment around ICOs. Over the past 9-12 months, cryptocurrencies and ICOs have been surrounded by an extremely high level of attention, and the market sentiment clearly seemed to be that ICOs were a much easier way in which to raise significant amounts of capital as compared to the more traditional ways. What we see here is now a clear and tangible example, that this is no longer true about ICOs (if indeed it ever was), and this might also be taken as a sign that blockchain-driven initiatives are no longer seen as special in their own right, but are subject to the same challenges in terms of funding as more traditional start-ups.
Building the future of logistics for SMEs
6 年https://www.porttechnology.org/news/300cubits_reports_blockchain_shipping_success
Strategy & Operations @ Google
6 年I wouldn't be sure about the "shifting mentality towards ICOs" just yet. - ICO funding in the first quarter of 2018 was higher than the the total for 2017. - Both the size of the average funding round and the rate of project funding are ATH Success of an ICO largely depends on the industry, MVP, team, geography, and marketing. Lots of projects still sell out within minutes.
Forandringsledelse ? Forbedringsledelse // Change Management ? Change Betterment
6 年Another one that's not selling like hotcakes, albeit off to a better start than 300cubits, is the CCC ICO by blockshipping. There was an early uptake, but it's remained pretty stale after that.?Is part of the challenge that irrespective how good the idea is, you can not get industry funding because the industry is inadvertently (or even blatantly) fighting joint standards? In their quest to go digital, each carrier has their own initiative - which means they shy away from backing outsiders that may compete with their own idea, even if those outsiders could be the ones that could drive through a common standard.
VP Sales Enablement at Xeneta
6 年Our industry was long accused of being behind others in the technology race due to dinosaurs, or lack of knowledge or willingness to adapt (I believed it myself for a while) However, I have not worked in any company in shipping that was not continually frustrated as their attempts to improve inefficient systems and data exchange were hampered by complexities and lack of standardisation in the shipping process. Now we have better technology, new possibilities are open to us, and we are finally able to make progress that excites us and that we have all been waiting for. However, it seems to me that new investors to the industry are now also seeing that the challenges we face are still significant, although they will be overcome by people with technical ingenuity and industry knowledge combined (and there are many of them!), but some of the results may be holistic in the short term or take time to drive real returns. Unicorns will remain very rare. Can simply throwing large amounts of cash to after a well marketed principle guarantee a huge return? No, but there are many in the race, the ambition is there, and turning points are coming (it's just not an overnight sensation, so maybe we're seeing a little more caution).
Global Supply Chain Consultant | Enterprise SaaS/PaaS Product Management | Software Engineer
6 年How many industry people actually know what "ICO" means?? Education is still lacking from all of the buzz word marketing campaigns.? It's all fluff until the money shows up and finding the money requires educating your consumer without using buzz words.