China's recent ban has sent shock waves through the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market. However, with almost $2 billion invested in ICOs globally, the rest of the world remains quite bullish on the fundraising instrument and the new ventures employing it. Among the enthusiasts are Mike Costache and Brock Pierce, the owners of the d10e conference series, who bring an innovative focus to the business that is redrawing the landscape.
The name d10e is a numeronym based on the count of letters between D and E in decentralize, and their upcoming event in Kiev, September 16th through the 19th, is the ninth they've hosted since their first event in Singapore back in 2014. Out of the the three hundred companies that have presented at d10e, with big names like EOS, Bancor and Civic, $750 million have been raised.
As I mentioned in my earlier guide on running an ICO, the days of eight or nine digit fundraising with nothing more than a white paper are over. Today a company goes on the road to build user and investor interest long before they build much infrastructure or hire beyond their core concept team. The magic d10e brings to this is that their conferences have become the aggregator of the investor contact activity, and they're stealing some of the reality TV playbook in order to expand and accelerate the process.
The upcoming conference in Kiev offers an accessible, competitive environment, but minus the nasty “voted off the island” vibe some reality shows feature. Instead, there are a number of ways for companies pushing ICOs to compete, to gain attention from investors, media, and the audience of end users at large, as well as collecting some funds to help them towards their next step.
Ten members of the Blockchain Investing Consortium (BIC), a group of institutions with over $2 billion under management, in total provided 100 BTC towards the investment prize pool. There were over a hundred applicants and of those twenty were deemed far enough along to participate in the pitch contest. That’s about $390,000 based on the exchange rate as this is being written, which makes this the biggest prize in the world for any ICO competition. The top three pitches will each take away a third of the funds, an egalitarian solution that pleases both the contestants and those who contributed to the prize pool.
A $130,000 prize for a small team means a lot of things, from bragging rights about getting funding from ten of the most active crypto hedge funds, to easily covering the travel and participation fees to the next three or four conferences. The other seventeen pitches are by no means losers; over one hundred registered investors, dozens of industry media people, and the user community are going to see what they have to offer. Those that do not make the top three slots still accrue tremendous benefit in terms of exposure. In addition to the investor award, there will be a media award, which I will be a judge for, and an audience award. Winners of the various prizes will all get media stories, contact with investors who are attending, and those important early adopters who understand what they are trying to accomplish.
The source of all this innovation is one impossibly energetic guy – Mike Costache, the founder of the BIC, co-owner of d10e and Managing Partner of KrowdMentor, an investment and advisory firm. I first met Mike while performing advisory due diligence for my clients at Inwage, which provides software development and recruitment services for companies building blockchain projects, often times after or just before their ICO. I quickly realized the positive impact he was bringing to the entire ICO movement by enabling much needed investor protections while facilitating quality connections between investors with companies looking to ICO via d10e and BIC. Mike explains the inspiration behind the conference.
“ICO promoters were being quite arrogant, they'd raise money from an early investor, as soon as they had it they'd be on to the next level, and since this is a new market with a lot of unknowns, the first round funders ended up feeling like they'd been worked.” says Costache. “When we hosted the sixth edition of d10e in Bucharest back in February we turned the usual trade show style expectations upside down. Instead of two dozen people each trying to get thirty seconds with a presenter or investor after a talk, we arranged museum trips, we toured Dracula’s seven hundred year old castle, and we created an environment where there were things to do outside the conference venue.”
The shift from semi annual to monthly events is partly driven by the accelerated nature of the market, but it also serves the needs of ICO teams that can't afford to roam the globe, it puts the conference into cryptocurrency hot spots, and in Costache's view it's just plain fun. A Romanian native, his family emigrated to Israel first, then to the U.S., and while he has settled in Los Angeles, Costache is a natural global citizen whose investment banking career took him to over fifty countries before he was drawn to the ICO business.
The upcoming show in Kiev is a bit of an homage to a past success for Costache.
“The first crypto hedge fund in the Blockchain Investment Consortium, Token-As-A-Service (TaaS), was built in Kiev. The founders drove twenty two hours to pitch at our Bucharest conference back in February when the total market cap for cryptocurrencies was just $20 billion. Now they are the most successful crypto hedge-fund with a $3.2 million portfolio of 14 ICO investments. We thought it quite appropriate to honor their success by bringing the conference to their home city.”
If you can’t make the event in person like myself, you’ll be able to watch it all live from the comfort of your couch at https://www.facebook.com/pg/d10e.decentralize/community/.
The schedule for d10e is dizzying – in addition to Kiev on the 16th through 19th, there are upcoming events in Warsaw, Gibraltar, Beijing, and in 2018 the twelve month schedule includes the Cayman Islands, Silicon Valley, Whistler, Tokyo, Singapore, Mumbai, Quito, Bucharest, Tel Aviv, Astana Kazakhstan, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Cape Town. You should be able to reach at least one of these, and it will be well worth your time to do so.
