Coronavirus, Economic Impact, Startups & Venture Capital

At the time of this writing, COVID-19 (aka Coronavirus) has infected more than 525.000 people and has killed more than 23.000.

Two students at Carnegie Mellon University developed Covid Visualizer to provide a simple, interactive way to visualize the impact of COVID-19. You can check each country or territory to see cases, deaths, and recoveries.

China’s experience so far shows that the right policies make a difference in fighting the disease and mitigating its impact through containment, but at a significant economic cost.

Coronavirus is having a profound and serious impact on the global economy, public markets and leading corporations.

The S&P, FTSE and Dow Jones Industrial Average have all seen huge falls since the beginning of the year.

And because of that, central banks in several countries have cut interest rates trying to encourage spending, and of course, to boost economy.

Travel and tourism industry is having an enormous impact, ranging from hotel and cruise ship quarantines to airlines halting flights in some regions. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the sector could shrink by up to 25% in 2020.

For example, the USA travel and tourism industry could lose at least U$S 24 Bn. in foreign spending this year because of the rapidly spreading coronavirus and up to 50 million jobs could be lost in the industry worldwide because of the pandemic.

One of the well-known Venture Capital firms in USA, Sequoia Capital, sent a memo to the portfolio companies advising them to prepare for the worst.

It refers to Coronavirus as “the Black Swan of 2020” and give founders & managers some insights of the challenges that companies in frontline countries are facing:

Drop in business activity.
Supply chain disruptions.
Curtailment of travel and canceled meetings.

It also advise the portfolio companies to “question every assumption about your business.”

Cash runway. Do you really have as much runway as you think?
Fundraising. Private financings could soften significantly, as happened in 2001 and 2009.
Sales forecasts. Even if you don’t see any direct or immediate exposure for your company, anticipate that your customers may revise their spending habits.
Marketing. With softening sales, you might find that your customer lifetime values have declined, in turn suggesting the need to rein in customer acquisition spending to maintain consistent returns on marketing spending.
Headcount. Given all of the above stress points on your finances, this might be a time to evaluate critically whether you can do more with less and raise productivity.
Capital spending. Until you have charted a course to financial independence, examine whether your capital spending plans are sensible in a more uncertain environment.

“Having weathered every business downturn for nearly fifty years, we’ve learned an important lesson — nobody ever regrets making fast and decisive adjustments to changing circumstances,”
Sequoia Capital`s Memo

And of course that after the Sequoia Capital memo founders all around the world are, understandably, freaking out. It’s hard enough to raise money in a healthy economy, let alone when the stock markets are tanking globally.

It’s obvious that VCs will not stop investing, but it’s also true that VCs will become more selective on their deals, they will take a bit more time to get to know and diligence the business, and the “investing grade bar” will be higher.

According to CB Insights forecasts, funding will slow down during the next quarters, with some even feeling that “disinvestment” will be heard more often in the countries that have been hit hardest.

Due to the lockdown of Universities, support offered by academic accelerators and incubators will be off the cards.

Public grants and funding from national and supranational organisations may be a more stable route to follow.

For example, the French government has announced a U$S 4.3 Bn. plan to support a startup ecosystem struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic that has shut down the nation’s economy.

Startups will also need to focus on their own sustainable model and bootstrap. Most of them will need to find a way to keep on growing even if they can’t access fresh capital.

Increasing Interest of VCs in ICOs

Despite the growing concerns of regulators over the ICOs, venture capitalists (VCs) have shown increasing interest in these offerings. However, what they are more interested in is the equity stakes rather than the proceeds from coin sales. Moreover, the growth of security tokens is expected as regulators intervene.

According to the statistics by CoinDesk, the funding has increased dramatically in the blockchain based firms, and startups have managed to raise about $434 million in just 3 months since December. Although, the token industry in the United States is under the scrutiny of the Security and Exchange Commission, piqued interest by VCs is an indication that digital currency business will experience growth.

Frank Meehan, the partner in SparksLab Group, said that if a firm gets an initial coin offering, the value of his equity will increase; this is exactly what it is all about. He also added that they have invested in 6 blockchain companies. In fact, the blockchain fund of 100 million dollars that was launched at the end of 2017 is a part of the Group.

Betting on Blockchain Companies

As discussed, investors have increasingly funded the blockchain startups during the past three months. CoinDesk data releaved that token sales have surged and startups raised funds of over $3 billion via ICOs during the first 2 months of 2018. It is more than 50 percent of what they raised in 2017.

According to the statistics by TokenData, last year 46 percent of the token startups either suffered from failure after the offering or could not complete funding. It further revealed that so far in 2018, a total of 50 startups have failed out of 340. There is no surprise as to why the failure rate is so high. After all, it is just a white paper and many of the products they are offering are not even functional – the technology has not even been tested on a mass scale.

VCs Are Cautious About Investing Too Much Too Soon

Therefore, some investors would wait for these firms to mature, while waiting for the decision regulatory authorities might take in future. Investors are looking for established companies, which means startups should raise money to fund their marketing and developing activities.

A managing director of Insight Venture Partners, Lonne Jaffe, acknowledged it by saying that it is a good time for them to be cautious, as they won’t be missing out on anything big. He furthered it by saying that they will start investing once firms begin to scale up; they have also been communicating with their portfolio firms about how they can serve the startups and use blockchain technology. He also revealed that they have a total of $18 billion in raised-capital for over 300 firms, which also includes Twitter Inc.

Pressure from the Regulators?

Although, there is a well-established regime by the regulatory authorities, the regulations for initial coin offerings are still evolving. The Treasury Department in the United States issued a letter on March 6, in which, it was stated that issue tokens will be considered as money transmitters; they will be required to follow the know-your-customer and bank secrecy guidelines.

Jay Clayton, the Chairman of SEC said that every offering he has come across is a security, even if token startups believe they are not. In fact, last month in March, Google, Facebook, and Twitter joined hands to ban advertisements for coin sales and ICOs. Also, the leading digital currency, Bitcoin, reduced in value by 8.7 percent.

Investors are interested to purchase security tokens with some kind of security attached in the form of equity or other assets as it will serve as a cushion in case there is some kind of regulatory shock in the future.

The co-founder of Securitize.io, Jamie Finn, has revealed that they plan to raise billions and have more than 100 startups in the pipeline. They provide a platform to issue tokens that have some sort of backing, such as company revenue or equity.

Currently, there is hardly any exchange that trades security tokens. An SEC-registered broker-dealer, Templum LLC, has been offering this service. It is an alternative trading system.

Besides, compared to a conventional startup equity that remains tied up for years, tokens backed by equity are traded more easily. Finn also added that after the end of lockdown, a person can even sell the equity-backed tokens. Moreover, one can easily purchase and sell them online. Similarly, family offices can directly invest in these securities rather than investing via funds.

Too Much Capital or Less Capital, that is the Question

There are so many entrepreneurs and founders who believe that injecting more capital means more success, but this is simply not true. The race to raising more capital leads to greed, which doesn’t end well if you don’t have a direction.

On the other hand, if your focus is to get less capital, not only does it make you rich as an entrepreneur, but it also enables your business to grow. The most prominent example of this case is of Zappos and Wayfair.

Importance of Being Capital Efficient

Everyone in the VC world is aware of the success experienced by Zappos. They secured investment from some of the best venture capitalists in the market and made it big with an unorthodox approach. The company was later sold to Amazon in a deal between $850 million and $1.2 billion, wherein, the founder secured $214 to $367 million.

An even better example of e-commerce success was laid out by Wayfair. It was a brainchild of Steve Conine and Niraj Shah. Instead of raising external capital, they bootstrapped their idea and turned it into a successful business. They purchased a large number of SEO friendly URLs, generated huge traffic, and optimized against Google’s algorithms. It started generating money right from the beginning and despite many offers from venture capitalists, they refused all offers until they reached $500 million revenue.

In 2014, Wayfair went for its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, each of its partners made as much as all the shareholders of Zappos made. The secret to their success was a capital efficient business. They only raised money from the outside when their firm had become valuable.

The co-founder of Wayfair made 10 times more than the founder of Zappos.

Limit Raising Capital in the Beginning

Although, some might associate the Wayfair’s success to the size of the furniture market, yet, shoe market is basically a better fit given low shipping cost, repetitive customers, etc.

There is no doubt that industry dynamics also contributes to the company’s success, but Wayfair made it big by employing an effective capital strategy. They did not raise any capital at the beginning, nor did they ask for it to speed up the early growth despite having offers from venture capitalists.

The only time they went for external capital was when they wanted to expand on a massive scale. They did not hesitate to take a huge amount of money and gathered three times higher than what Zappos did. However, they went for it only when the business had established its name, had minimum dilution, and could generate huge profits.

Why Should You Secure Money Later rather than Sooner?

This is one of the most important question. From the two scenarios above, it is obvious that Wayfair made much more money as compared to Zappos. Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, said that he sold the company to Amazon due to the pressure imposed by its shareholders. Despite making a lot of money, giving in to the financial decisions made years ago was quite frustrating. Hsieh might have made it as big as Wayfair did, if he had more control over the decisionmaking process.

At the time of the IPO, Wayfair founders owned over 50 percent of the business and had managed to raise capital on their own terms with very little dilution. This enabled them to exercise more control over the financial decisions, which is also reflected in the success.

Overcapitalization Leads to Limited Optionality

When it comes to taking a financial decision, overcapitalized businesses usually end up with two choices:

Take millions of dollars in investment and fail
Make money for venture capitalists or go bankrupt and fire your entire team

But Wayfair, on the other hand, made a lot of money due to the lean financing strategies of their founders. It also enabled them to retain their right of Optionality. This gave them a choice to sell on the basis of their risk appetite or business performance, and not based on their capital structure. Just because you have become a multi-million dollar startup, doesn’t mean you should not raise money down the line.

It is important to understand that raising too much capital has its downsides. Therefore, efficient decision making should be employed to be able to spend your money wisely.

Venture Capital Deals in 2017

2017 turned out to be quite a success for startups as they managed to receive over 67 billion dollars in venture capital funding, broking the previous record of 2015 by 5 percent.

Although, there has been substantial funding in Silicon Valley during the past few years, the overall investment has reduced since 2015. There has been a decline of 12 percent and it’s partially because of Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. as these companies secured the maximum funding in 2017. Snap Inc. got a funding of 1.8 billion dollars, whereas Uber secured 3.5 billion dollars in 2016, and the value of capital received in 2017 decreased. Another reason was the fact that some of the major deals happened elsewhere last year.

The Value of Deal Based on Metropolitan Statistical Area

If you look at the trend based on metropolitan areas, San Francisco was in the lead, but as discussed, the overall value has declined since 2015. Similarly, the investment in Boston and Los Angeles has also decreased; it was 6.2 billion dollars and 4.9 billion dollars for Boston and Los Angeles in 2015, but in 2017, the amount reduced to 5.9 billion and 3.9 billion respectively.

On the other hand, the funding in New York, San Jose, Washington D.C., and Chicago increased. In 2015, Chicago secured 0.9 billion dollar investment, which eventually increased to about 1.5 billion dollars in 2017. Washington experienced a mild increased from $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion and San Jose increased from 6.5 billion dollars to 6.9 billion dollars. The investment in New York however, almost doubled since 2015. It was 7.8 billion dollars in 2015, but in 2017, the overall value increased to 13.3 billion dollars.

On the other hand, the funding value also increased in Miami, Philadelphia, Provo, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. The biggest reason for the sharp increase in the funding value in New York was the massive infusion of money in WeWork Companies Inc. The company got a capital of about 6 billion dollars in 2017, which eventually led to the sudden increase in the overall funding.

2017 Top 10 Deals

After WeWork, the second biggest deal in 2017 was Lyft in San Francisco, the company secured 2 billion dollars in funding. Other deals in San Francisco that made their way to the Top 10 included Uber with $1.25 billion, GRAIL with $0.9 billion, and SoFi with $0.5 billion.

Beside that, Admiral Permian Resources in Midland secured 0.6 billion dollars, Magic Leap in Miami got a capital of 502 million dollars, Outcome Health got 500 million, and SpaceX got 450 million dollars. Another company in New York that made its way to the Top 10 was Compass that secured a capital of 0.55 billion dollars.

All in all, startups in many regions of the U.S. managed to get funding as compared to 2015. In 2017, around 141 metropolitan areas got capital in a total of 48 states, whereas, it was 119 areas of 43 states back in 2015.

Size of Deals

The value of investment received by companies also increased over the years. Although, the total number of deals has declined since 2015, the overall deal value increased by 3 billion dollars. If you look at the average size of a deal, it was 25.5 million dollars in 2017. This has been the highest so far in history. The average size in 2015 was 21.5 million dollars.

The average size of a seed stage investment was also high, i.e., 13.8 million dollars in 2017. It was $11.9 million in 2015. The early stage deals represented almost 33 percent of the total venture capital volume. The value of late-stage deals, however, has declined since 2013.

Number of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)

The number of IPOs deals around the world was the highest since 2007, but there were only a few IPOs in the United States that were backed by the VCs. There were only 28 companies that went public in 2017, which was quite low as compared to 2015.

Moreover, some of the biggest companies couldn’t perform well in 2017; the 3 largest IPOs showed negative returns. Snap Inc. , the second biggest IPO, showed very poor returns.

To summarize, the VC environment has experienced ups and downs over the years, but the overall trends have been declining with the passage of time.

The Unicorn Movies — Biggest ROIs vs Biggest Winners

There are lot of players involved in the film industry such as film production companies, film studios, animation, screenwriting, distribution; and of course actors, directors, and other film crew personnel.

All of them make a global industry that shows projections for the coming years from about USD 38 Bn. in 2016 to USD 50 bn. in 2020.

But when it comes to thinking about the earnings of the industry, all of us think about the best sellers or the box office grosses or what its also known as The Billion-Dollar Film Club.

And of course we will find in that list the following top 5:

Avatar — Worldwide Gross: USD 2,787,965,087
Titanic — Worldwide Gross: USD 2,187,463,944
Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Worldwide Gross: USD 2,068,223,624
Jurassic World — Worldwide Gross: USD 1,671,713,208
The Avengers — Worldwide Gross: USD 1,518,812,988

But when we check the ROI of these movies, we can see that Avatar had a total production budget of $ 425.000.000.- which means a 556% ROI. A huge return for the investors and everyone who bet on the James Cameron project.

When it comes to the most profitable movies, based on Return on Investment (ROI), none of the previous list made it to the following one.

If we think of them as an asset class, film would appear to be uncorrelated to the other types of investments and somewhat recession resistant as people still go to the movies.

As any other investment, diversification is a key part. Invest in a portfolio of films, rather than a single production. Through diversification comes a more proper balance of risk and return.

The film industry only confirms the great quote by George Soros:

Money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

Will 2018 Mark the End of Initial Public Offerings?

2017 turned out to be a great year for technology-based IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) that were backed by venture capital.

So many names in a corporate world went public last year, including SendGrid, StitchFix, BlueApron, Cloudera, and Yext. In fact, one of the most successful IPOs in the last few years was Snapchat. In 2018, there are some potential firms that are likely to go public, which is great because the Dow and S&P 500 are at the record high.

Beginning of the End for IPOs?

However, dark clouds have started to form on a distant horizon regarding IPOs. Spotify will probably go for direct listing and bypass the bank underwriting to go public. On the other hand, blockchain technology is booming and has attracted many retail investors, especially the ones who are skeptical about the IPOs and the corruption in this sector. Similarly, SoftBank Vision Fund is also trying to raise as much private capital as possible to provide protection to firms from the devastating effect of vulture funds.

There is an increasing awareness that current IPO sector is a hub of corruption, wherein, only those people are benefiting from the firms growth cycle who know the ‘right people’. The retail investors, however, are on the losing end as they are getting sufficient returns. This growing awareness is not going to subside, especially when there is a constant increase viability of other options.

Robust Technology – An Alternative to Conventional IPO

The fall of IPOs has been predicted so many times in the past, but it hasn’t happened yet. Ten or so years back when Google went for a Dutch-style IPO, so many people anticipated that it could a soon-to-be-ending road for banks who want to run a roadshow for investors. Similarly, a few years ago, when the pipeline of initial offerings dried up, the same hype was created.

Despite all the noise, the IPO has continued to provide good business. Although, firms will continue to go public by trading shares or securities, they are undergoing certain changes. For example, conventional ways of big banks to charge a huge fee is going to be replaced by more effective alternatives. So many bankers have already begun to lose their jobs after the introduction of technology. Goldman Sachs has already built an application that manages the IPO process. These steps are being taken to enhance the efficiency of operations.

There are only a few who have anticipated that IPOs will get a support of ethereum tokens and the Dutch East India company. However, no one can deny the fact that IPOs are growing weaker day by day, and they won’t survive in the long run if drastic measures are not taken.

Spotify’s Direct Listing

The company has managed to secure around 70 million paying subscribers, but at the same time, its chief content officer has resigned. In addition to that, the company is also dealing with some lawsuits filed by the music labels, which can be very damaging in the future.

Despite all the ups and downs, the news has come to light that Spotify is planning to go public via the direct listing. By undergoing direct listing, the company will not issue any new shares nor will it raise any capital through the process. For IPOs, this arrangement can be very devastating as financial institutions like Goldman Sachs will become deprived of underwriting fees, whereas, institutional investors will lose an opportunity to buy IPO shares at a huge discount like they did in the past.

Although, a direct listing of Spotify will be a little bumpy, it doesn’t mean that the process will end in disaster. The rise of digital trading based on algorithms will help Spotify stabilize the price after analyzing the market. The process will be executed as fast as it does for other initial offerings.

Increasing Trend of ICOs

Another disruptive disaster expected to happen is the rising trend of ICOs. Initial coin offerings or ICOs are being considered as a replacement for VCs. The rush of initial coin offerings among startup companies has placed a big question mark on the existence of IPOs. ICO model might not be applicable to every company, but being a competitive threat to IPO, they do not necessarily have to apply to every firm.

All in all, IPO is facing back to back attacks; a direct public offering will dramatically reduce the fees involved in conventional IPO, whereas, ICO will be an effective tool for potential financial growth. These disruptive tools are definitely going to rule out the need to go public so as to achieve financial strength, which would eventually impact the long-term sustenance of IPOs.

Venture Capital Sector Facing Challenges in the Era of Cryptocurrency

In the past couple of years, cryptocurrency has experienced a sudden boom and is now making news in every sector. In the beginning, when bitcoin was in its initial stages, everybody was talking about Venture Capital (VC) and how it is going to benefit the small businesses.

So many venture capitalists made money by investing in innovative ideas that eventually materialized into unicorns. Instead of investing in the digital currency like bitcoins, investors preferred to invest in the companies, such as Coinbase or 21.co.

Bitcoin Price at All Times High

Some of these firms performed better than the other. For example, Coinbase ended up being in the first place in the app store of Apple last December as a result of hype over bitcoin. On the other hand, 21 kept changing its names and business plans. Back when Coinbase got its first round of funding from VCs, its price was about $110. However, recently, it has managed to reach $19,000.

An investment associate in the Digital Currency Group, Travis Scher, was of the opinion that had investors invested in the cryptocurrency instead of investing in digital currency firms, they would’ve gotten much higher returns by now.

VCs and the Increasing Trend of ICOs

This isn’t easy to grasp as it complicates the core idea of VCs.

The conventional way of making an investment was to find out the rising trend in technology, identify the targets that were in line with those trends and were in a better position to make it big, and then taking a profitable exit as soon as those companies were either sold out or went public.

But it won’t be an effective strategy for digital currencies like bitcoin. In fact, as more and more cryptocurrencies have entered the market, it has become even more confusing and complex. The community of dreamers, and entrepreneurs have been raising money via ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), wherein, they create their own digital currencies, sell them for money and trade them in the open market.

When it comes to venture capital firms, they offer the investors an unrestricted access to private companies that are not publicly listed. Therefore, the question is, where will these venture capital companies go, if ICOs become a strong medium for people to get a bit of hot technology.

Venture Capitalists and their New Tactics

Venture capitalists have been devising new tactics to deal with the frenzy of cryptocurrency. Instead of seeking a stake in the digital currency firm, they have started purchasing the rights to acquire tokens ahead of initial coin offerings via legal contracts. In addition to that, they are improvising conventional equity deals, offering guarantees to investors in terms of getting tokens if a startup company goes for ICO in the future.

Some investors have also invested directly in bitcoin for years. The founder of VC firm Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya, said that he, along with his partners, invested in 5 percent of the bitcoin in circulation and still hold a reasonable stake in the currency.

Increasing Risks Faced by Investors in the Digital Currency Market

Although, the cryptocurrency market is rapidly growing, yet, it is not without risk. In fact, so many investors have suffered from hacking attacks and have also been threatened physically.

Threats are very real and harmful, because bitcoin will be lost forever if somebody steals it.

Cryptocurrency Hedge Funds and Futures Tokens

So many VC firms, including Sequoia Capital, Union Square Venture, and Andreessen Horowitz have made an investment in digital currency hedge funds in order to benefit from the boom without worrying about managing these currencies. They earn profits by trading dabble, litecoin, ethereum, and bitcoin in the ICOs market.

Some of the big names in the world of VC, including Bain Capital Venture, Union Square Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, have entered the deals to acquire digital tokens. For that, they are using legal agreements called “Simple Agreements for Future Tokens” also known as SAFT. Andreessen Horowitz is also taking steps to include provisions in standard contracts for investments in order to properly address ICOs.

According to a research website, in 2017, startup companies made about $3.6 billion in ICOs. This, however, is nothing in comparison to the $52.6 billion earned by VCs from around the world, as stated in the report by CB Insights and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Despite that, investors are inclined toward ICOs as it enables them to make millions in short span of time as compared to VC investments, which take years before you can reap the return.

National Currencies last breath?

The world of digital currency has gained massive popularity in the past couple of years.

Bitcoin has moved over $19,000, whereas, Ethereum is increasing in value every day and its price has crossed over $700. The continuing boom of cryptocurrencies might eventually lead to the next big step, i.e., the end of cash currencies.

Yes, you heard it right. Even the director and founder of Bitt, Gabriel Abed, is of the opinion that cash has been in the market for too long, and all the currencies will eventually be digitized.

Rise of the New Economic Age

All the cryptocurrencies, including Ether and Bitcoin, are basically issued by private organizations, groups, and individuals, they mine it through cryptographic protocols and more and more countries are gradually heading in that direction.

Russia has recently announced its plans for a national digital currency called Crypto-Ruble.
China and Kyrgyzstan are following the lead.
In Japan, over 200,000 stores have been accepting bitcoin as a legal tender and some of the big banks are planning to create their own version of these cryptocurrencies.

In a highly innovative environment, efforts are being made to circulate digital currency in various economies. The Federal Reserve in the United States however, has no such plans of nationalizing the cryptocurrency.

Crypto-Ruble – A New Start for Better Russian Economy?

Putin is very strict about following law and order and despite the advantages of having a national digital currency, it has gray areas when it comes to its legal status. This is why he is a little skeptical about cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the aim of Russian official crypto-policy is to eliminate the chances of illegal transactions such as, human-trafficking, terrorism financing, and money laundering, while at the same time using this technology to modernize the internal capital management of Russia. This is the main strategy behind crypto-ruble.

The crypto-ruble will serve as a connection between the real world and the crypto-world, which would enable the efficient tracking of capital flow in the Russian economy. Those who won’t be able to provide a paper trail of ownership will have to pay tax on crypto-ruble at the capital gain rates. It will encourage the development of low-cost crypto-payment systems, which allows the exchange of rubles for goods only in digital currencies where ownership can be tracked.

China Taking a Step to Cryptocurrency Implementation

People’s Bank of China has already created a prototype of a digital currency that may be circulating in the market in times to come, alongside Yuan. The country is testing possible scenarios in a simulated environment and running dummy transactions using digital currency with a few commercial banks in China.

Making Quantitative Easing Easier with National Cryptocurrency

The rise of new economic age with cryptocurrency as a national currency will make quantitative easing much easier. Quantitative easing is an economic concept, whereby the central bank purchases predefined amount of financial assets and government bonds to give a boost to the economy. By having a national cryptocurrency, it will be easier to execute the concept of quantitative easing.

Why is National Digital Currency a Better Idea?

Abed further added that nationalizing the digital currency is a better option as it is more transparent, immutable, and efficient. In fact, there have been talks between the Central Bank of Jamaica and Bitt to enable testing this technology. At the same time, the company has been running the active pilot programs in other Caribbean countries.

Jamaica is encouraging the FinTech startups by enabling them to operate in the country. The main reason behind these efforts is to foster innovation. A representative of the Caribbean Development Bank said that they do not want to be in a situation where regulatory authorities have a strong and dominant hand initially. He further said that the Caribbean can be used as a virtual space to test the new technology in a secure environment. These efforts will eventually enable them to take bigger steps in the future.

Should Regulators be Concerned About This Profitable Investment?

Although investors from around the world have shown increasing interest in the digital currency, many regulators negatively criticize Blockchain and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). However, there has been an exception recently as Yao Loong Ng, the executive director of the Financial Market Strategy department, is encouraging the regulatory authorities around the globe to learn about cryptocurrency and ICOs. He even pointed out the fact that learning about the developments in the world of digital currency can be useful for regulators.

In a panel discussion of the South East Asian Nation Capital Markets Conference that was held in Malaysia, Ng said that it takes a lot less time to market for the ICOs as compared to IPOs (Initial Public Offerings).

IPOs can take as much as 9 months to market. This is why he believes that if the entire process of writing a white paper for ICOs and its subsequent listing is taking just a few days, then regulators certainly have something to learn from it.

Current Developments in Cryptocurrency

But the question is, why is there a need to regulate it? Cryptocurrencies have gained a lot of traction in the last few years and so many investors have been investing in the virtual currency. In fact, in July 2017, Alex Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution’s author, made an announcement of closing an over-subscribed financing of 20 million dollars for his digital investment funds. The hedge fund is called NextBlock Global. His opinion is that this fund has everything, including domain expertise, and market access to have a bright future.

Last year in September, Olaf Carlson also created a hedge fund of digital currencies, which had more than $200 million in Assets Under Management. Among many venture capital firms that are backing this fund, Union Square Venture, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz are a few leading names.

Currently, the majority of the investors in the world of digital currency are either individuals with high wealth or retail investors. Institutional investors have so far shown very limited interest in cryptocurrencies. But this is not going to stay the same. In fact, the change has already started taking place. The new flow of investment by the institutional investors will give a boost to bitcoins and other altcoins by pushing its value rapidly in the upward direction due to their small market capitalization.

In times like this, it has become increasingly important to step forward. Instead of negatively criticizing the new form of currency, it’s time to embrace it and start the efforts of regulating it. Although, there has been a constant backlash from the regulators community at large, there are a few countries where authorities are working on creating regulations.

Regulating the Digital Currency

In Malaysia, the Security Commission has made an announcement that it is currently in the process of preparing guidelines and regulations on how these currencies should function, which includes secondary market trading of established digital assets and currencies.

Tan Sri Ranjit Singh, the chairman of the commission said that they are working closely with the central bank of Malaysia to develop a framework on cryptocurrencies. He further added that it will take a few months for the framework to complete. He also mentioned that they are observing it very carefully and since the Security Commission control and regulate the secondary market, they will design the rules and regulations in such a way that there is a right condition in place for trading values in order to secure market integrity. This is also being done for providing the projection to investors.

Regulatory Efforts

A consultant at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, Munish Sharma, talked about the dilemma faced by most regulators, especially when it comes to the existence of this new technology in the highly regulated space. He said that digital currency has gained a lot of investors’ attention in the past 5 years, but at the same time, there have been growing concerns among the financial institutions’ regulators around the world.

Instead of just letting the digital currency grow without any interference or regulation, governments of various countries are brainstorming with the regulators on how to regulate these virtual currencies.

Rising Trend of Initial Coin Offerings

According to a report by Mangrove Capital, 204 ICOs have made a return of about 1,320 percent.

At the same time, investment banks and hedge funds have shown increasing interest in the digital currency with over 55 crypto-specific hedge funds. Before diving deep into why investors are showing greater interest in cryptocurrency, let’s take a look at what ICO is.

What is ICO?

Unlike conventional financial system, ICO or Initial Coin Offering is an alternative and unconventional way of crowdfunding. It has enabled a number of successful firms and projects to get the finance to start their business. New businesses and startups around the globe are getting millions of dollars in funds by issuing digital coins. The rising trend of digital currency has made people both worried and excited.

In ICO, the coins bought by investors are for businesses and marketplaces that are not developed yet. By purchasing these coins, they make a bet that a firm or startup will end up becoming successful and as a result, the coin will increase in value.

In average it takes about six months or a year to raise money with conventional venture capital (VC) system, but it is different when it comes to ICOs. In this token crowdfunding, you get to have a large crowd of engaging supporters who want to see you succeed. Not only do they campaign for you, but they are also your early adopters.

Growing Trend of ICO

Startups have raised more than 2 billion dollars since the start of 2017. It is a huge amount of funding, given the fact that not many people knew about it a few years ago. Businesses are making money via this mode of funding faster than usual.

In April this year, Gnosis (prediction market for Ethereum) managed to raise 12 million dollars in just ten minutes. In June, Mozilla’s founder raised 35 million dollars by selling Basic Attention Tokens in under 30 seconds for his new web browser startup called ‘Brave’.

ICOs have become the name of the game as they have left the venture capital market behind and are the biggest source of funding. It is a great option for those companies that are pursuing the application of blockchain technology.

Concerns by the Regulators

Despite the increasing trends of ICOs, regulators have shown serious concerns. They are warning investors that it is a high-risk investment.

Although, some coins value has dramatically increased, a very high volatility cannot be ignored. Some have also considered it a ‘speculative boom’, but that did not stop investment banks and hedge funds from showing their interest by making an investment in cryptocurrencies and ICOs.

Reason behind the Increasing Interest of Institutional Investors in ICOs

The digital currency market has made massive profits in the past one year or so. Initially, institutional investors were curious about what this is all about, but they started getting a hang of it gradually and became less apprehensive and more interested in this alternative investment. It is a kind of chain reaction that started with the rising interest among venture capitalists and now institutional investors, including mutual funds, investment banks, and hedge funds are following their lead. They have shown growing interest and are making an effort to estimate and grab the opportunities in the cryptocurrency market.

The reason why they are more interested in the new and unconventional currency is that it promises a higher return as compared to market averages. According to a fintech analytics firm, there have been at least 55 cryptocurrency hedge funds and a former manager at Fortress, Mike Novogratz, has recently announced a plan to use 500 million dollars for a new digital currency hedge fund. Blockchain Capital also made an announcement of raising 150 million dollars; a part of this fund will be for cryptocurrencies.

Goldman Sachs’ Approval

Goldman Sachs is planning to set up a bitcoin trading desk, as they believe that institutional investors are interested in cryptocurrency more than ever. The firm has reported it to be ‘a major milestone’. They believe that the investors need an over-the-counter brokerage platform where they can sell or buy as much cryptocurrency as they want. Goldman Sachs is of the opinion that it can take up this role, but there will be other issues, including market infrastructure and serious concern by the regulators.

If, however, ICOs becomes regulated, it will change the way how businesses raise money and will also impact the venture capital market.