How Neufund is tokenizing the equity of six global startups

Jeff Weisbein -

Today, some of the biggest challenges that startups face when dealing with the traditional investment market is the lack of liquidity, slow fundraising processes, and regulations favoring and protecting top tier investors. These barriers of entry tend to leave novice investors behind and excluded from favorable opportunities, resulting in a lack of financial contribution to the overall market that this group of entrepreneurs could bring.

Neufund, the company that is shaking up the venture capital industry, is addressing this issue by giving investors and inventors a new way to fund ventures on the Ethereum blockchain. The new distinguished protocol will enable investors to fund projects while in return, acquiring equity in the form of tradable crypto tokens, coined “equity tokens.” This permits startups, SMBs, and established companies alike to legally issue a form of asset ownership. Since Neufund is a public, open-sourced platform, any entrepreneurship venture has the chance to hold an ETO (Equity Token Offering) for their own company’s Equity Token. Equity Tokens give token holders essentially the same rights as traditional shareholders being that they represent and have legal ties to equity in the respective company. Investments can be made using both ETH and EUR, bringing crypto to the real world.

Zoe and Marcin, Neufund founders.

Prior to Neufund, traditional equity instruments were the only place that VC companies could invest in. Fast forward to Neufund, where its equity tokens serve as equity instruments, authorizing individuals or businesses with limited investing capital to utilize fractional ownership as a tool of investment. There are six companies already on board with Neufund’s technology, with many more coming down the pipeline. The six companies tokenizing their equity are:

  • Brille24: Brille24 is a Eyewear pioneer and aims to change the way people access eye care by making it convenient to purchase glasses online thanks to smart ai-applications. Founded 10 years ago, Brille24 has sold more than two million glasses and is currently serving one million customers. The company was founded in 2007 in Oldenburg, Germany and 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.
  • Uniti: Uniti is the Swedish electric car startup offering what CNBC has called “the car of the future.” These care are safe and affordable EVs with premium technology. It was founded in 2016 by Lewis Horne, with the first deliveries expected in 2019.
  • mySWOOOP: mySWOOOP is an omni-channel re-commerce platform that buys and sells new and used electronics. With tailored software technology, mySWOOOP automatically determines current market prices in real-time assuring attractive resale-margins. mySWOOOP was founded in 2011 by Benjamin Gabriel, Simon Gabriel and Jan-Lucca Sielski.
  • Next Big Thing: Next Big Thing is Europe’s premier startup incubator for IoT & blockchain ventures and Germany’s chosen Digital Hub for IoT, driving European innovation. Next Big Thing leverages its technological and economic ecosystem to enable disruptive business models. It was co-founded in 2016 by Harald Zapp, Michael-Maria Bommer, and Maik Käbisch.
  • Emflux Motors: Emflux Motors is an electric superbike company changing the landscape of transportation & mobility. It is an India-based venture backed by both crypto and traditional investors with a mission to power 10 million electric bikes globally by 2027. Emflux Motors was founded in 2016 by Varun Mittal, Ankit Khatry, and Vinay Raj Somashekher.
  • BlockState: BlockState is a company creating products for the future of finance. BlockState builds 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.

In the near future, Neufund will be welcoming three more companies to its platform; a bank for crypto founders, a platform enabling fiat currency transactions on Ethereum, and a German biotech company featuring genome sequencing technologies.

It is hard to say how well received this Neufund’s new technology will be, given that it is disrupting an age-old investing system. Coupled with that, blockchain technology in itself has endured significant amounts of skepticism regarding its legitimacy and security. At least Neufund acknowledges this fact and, in turn, made the necessary adjustments needed to be regulated under German jurisdiction. The platform offers a fully transparent experience as well as instructional tutorials to gradually build basic knowledge of crypto technology and economics, while simultaneously demystifying the blockchain.