Funderbeam, an incubator company, launches blockchain trading and investment platform for startups to help companies raise funds

Baozou Shizhao Comment : Incubator company Funderbeam has launched an innovative trading platform for startups to find angel investors for new startups. They want to provide some services to these new companies to help them develop before they go public or sell. This is the "first time in history that a startup uses blockchain technology to trade company investments." Currently, two startups from Estonia, Shipitwise and SportID, have successfully completed crowdfunding activities on Funderbeam. The third startup, Sportlyzer, will follow soon.

Translation: Nicole

A year ago, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn and Funderbeam co-founder Urmas Peiker envisioned a blockchain exchange that could find angel investors for new startups. They wanted to provide services to help these new businesses grow before they went public or sold.

A year later, incubator company Funderbeam has launched an innovative trading platform for startups, saying it is "the first time in history that a startup has traded corporate investments using blockchain technology."

Funderbeam aims to change the rules of the game for entry-level investors by allowing them to choose how long they want to hold their investments. By using the Bitcoin blockchain to "tokenize" these investments, Funderbeam wants to make transactions secure, efficient, open and transparent.

Kaidi Ruusalepp

Kaidi Ruusalepp, CEO and co-founder of Funderbeam and former CEO of Nasdaq Estonia, said: “The future of investing will be digital and transparent, and so will companies, and I’m very happy that we have taken the first step towards that future.”

The first two companies to appear on the new exchange’s list are two Estonian startups, Shipitwise and SportID. Both companies have successfully completed their first crowdfunding campaigns on Funderbeam. A third startup, Sportlyzer, will follow soon.

Funderbeam is currently working with interested young companies in the UK, Germany and Finland, with the aim of expanding its services to other regions, not just Estonia, and wants to run experiments with the first three startups to ensure operations run smoothly.

Tim Draper

When Funderbeam first launched, venture capitalist Tim Draper said, “I really like what they’re doing. You know, the public markets aren’t working, and what Fundbeam is doing is solving that problem.”

In the original statement, CEO Ruusalepp predicted the growing importance of blockchain in the financial world: “Blockchain will do for finance what the internet did for our daily lives. There are many middlemen between money and companies in stock trading, such as securities custodians, central banks, central counterparties, brokers, dealers and account operators. Blockchain takes on the role of these middlemen, streamlining processes, reducing costs and enabling cross-border transactions.”

Over the past year, Funderbeam has helped angel investors and entrepreneurs discover, compare and analyze startups using data from services such as AngelList and CrunchBase.

Funderbeam has raised $2 million from investors so far and has a large-scale data platform that records information on up to 150,000 startups. The company's website lists detailed information about companies seeking financing, including financing so far, as well as financing goals and financing timelines.

Funderbeam plans to take a 3% commission from successfully funded companies, and may also add transaction fees in the future.

Nasdaq is leading the way, working with Estonia's Tallinn Stock Exchange in the Linq project to develop a trading platform using blockchain technology. Other exchanges that have developed or applied blockchain technology include Deutsche Börse and the Australian Stock Exchange.