Fund management platform for blockchains and cryptocurrencies, ICONOMI has announced that approximately $5.8 million in equity and operational capital had been raised through an Initial Coin Offering. Developed by Cashila, Ethereum-based ICONOMI is creating a disintermediated alternative to the multi-billion dollar fund management industry, decentralising traditional Wall Street.
The ICO closes on September 29, 2016 where upon, ICO token holders will exercise 100% ownership of ICONOMI. Backers of the ICO will be issued “ICN” tokens that function as equity shares in a new type of fund management platform, specifically focused on blockchain. According to CoinMarketCap, total existing cryptocurrencies are now valued at over $12 billion, rising from $7 billion at the beginning of this year.
ICONOMI will provide the foundation, infrastructure, and guidelines for funds offered on its platform, with varying levels of expected yield and risk profiles. The first ICONOMI funds were revealed last week at Ethereum’s Devcon2 in Shanghai: ICONOMI.INDEX, an index investment fund comprised of a basket of popular cryptocurrencies that minimizes volatility, and ICONOMI.PERFORMANCE, an actively managed fund targeting higher yields and run by credentialed, expert traders. Both funds are expected to launch in Q4 2016. Additional, custom funds created by prominent traders will be available in 2017.
Investors will be able to withdraw or liquidate their holdings at any time via the sale of ICONOMI tokens on major exchanges or at any POS terminal through the use of the ICONOMI Visa debit card, which will be linked to account owner’s share of ICONOMI investment funds. All fiat funds are held at a regulated, insured, major bank and all cryptocurrencies are held by trusted escrow partners with multisig wallets. ICONOMI developers are focussed on asset security and as such have instituted practices such as a unique ICONOMI hardware random key generator, the extensive use of encryption, and multifactor authentication for withdrawals.
ICONOMI token owners, or shareholders, will earn weekly profit dividends in the form of ETH as soon as ICONOMI funds are launched. Dividends will come from the trading fees of investment funds under the management of ICONOMI and from the fees of investment funds of independent traders, listed on the ICONOMI fund management platform and in accordance with the fee split schedule.
Investors with fiat currencies purchasing tokens in ICONOMI’s ICO are subject to EU-wide AML/KYC compliance standards requiring supplementary verification for additional tiers of investment.
Tim M. Zagar, co-founder and Director of Operations and Business, said: “ICONOMI’s success is proving that the idea of ‘uberization’ is best for far more than consumer-level services. There is tremendous demand for a platform like ICONOMI to cut out the middleman, lowering the barrier to entry for investment into cryptocurrencies.”
Co-founder and Director of Technology & Trading, Jani Valjavec noted: “What we’re seeing is that crowdfunding will be considered an option for capital raise in all sectors, even in industries as sophisticated as financial technology. With this funding, ICONOMI will have the resources to begin the inevitable disruption of finance.”
