ceo

Feb 23 2021

Amazon Launchpad Teams Up with Indiegogo

Today we’re excited to announce that we’ll be working with Amazon Launchpad to help successful Indiegogo campaigns become flourishing small businesses.

Amazon Launchpad can help new brands, entrepreneurs, and startups overcome many of the challenges associated with launching new products by using Amazon Launchpad’s marketing tools, ecommerce expertise and unique benefits to increase visibility of their current products so they can focus their attention on new innovations, expansion, and what’s next for their business. Launchpad looks for disruptors, innovators and builders with differentiated products or interesting brand stories.

Amazon Launchpad is now featured on the Indiegogo Experts Directory, and directs qualified Indiegogo campaigns to fill out a Launchpad application. Successful Indiegogo campaigns are encouraged to apply for Amazon Launchpad and will be reviewed for potential inclusion in the Amazon Launchpad program.

By teaming up with Indiegogo, Amazon Launchpad can become the next step in the lifecycle for select Indiegogo campaigns.

“Amazon Launchpad is a great program for Indiegogo campaigns to continue their post-campaign product launch journey,” says Andy Yang, CEO of Indiegogo. “We’re excited to give Indiegogo campaigners another tool to succeed.”

“Indiegogo is a platform for entrepreneurs and consumers to unite around unique product ideas,” says Nick Love, Director of Amazon Launchpad. “This aligns with our mission to do the same. We’re thrilled to see all the innovative products we can support and help showcase to Amazon customers.”

Stay tuned for a special online event hosted by Indiegogo and Amazon Launchpad in March! Join the waitlist now to reserve your spot.

To learn more and connect with Amazon Launchpad, visit the Experts Directory and fill out an application form.

<!–

Comments are closed

–>

Source

Feb 22 2021

Enterprise Blockchain Platform for Real Estate, Ubitquity, Is Partnering LavaTrust to Streamline Closing Operations

Ubitquity LLC, an enterprise-grade blockchain-enabled platform for real estate and title recordkeeping, is teaming up with LavaTrust Consultancy in order to gain key insights into the US real estate closing sector.

Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada, LavaTrust Consultancy aims to bring its industry expertise and valuable experience in the real estate markets (USA / Canada), as well as the global digital assets sector.

The founders at LavaTrust have reportedly been looking to streamline the real estate sector with the adoption of blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT). Now mainly focused on education and consultation, company CEO Joy Case is pleased to have some sort of alignment with Ubitquity, which is an established player in real estate applications for blockchain tech.

Having “vision” and “values” aligned with Ubitquity, LavaTrust aims to open up networks and key opportunities for both to participate in the restructuring of outdated technology and business processes with greater efficiency of DLT-based solutions.

Nathan Wosnack, Founder and CEO at Ubitquity, stated:

“Ubitquity and I are excited to be working with LavaTrust Consultancy. Ms. Case and her team bring a wealth of knowledge and years of experience in the real estate and digital marketplaces. Combining this with our blockchain applications will be mutually beneficial and make a long-term impact on the evolution of the real estate closing industry,”

Wosnack also mentioned that they benefit from leveraging LavaTrust Consultancy’s CEO Joy Case’s “trusted” network developed by taking advantage of 15 years of experience in the real estate sector (residential, commercial and development initiatives). He added that as LavaTrust has “strategic” relationships with Family Offices and various other investors, their potential for new collaborations has “expanded tremendously.”

Joy Case, CEO and Founder of LavaTrust Consultancy, remarked:

“I am excited and grateful to partner with Ubitquity to help galvanize blockchain adoption in the often antiquated processes within the real estate industry. Ubitquity has various blockchain-based products that can serve the industry with enhanced efficiency, increased security in the transaction process, less friction and increased agility in the closing lifecycle, parallel recordkeeping data storage, alternative revenue streams for its partners, future-proofed settlement solutions and so much more.”

Case also noted that with the emergence of more regulatory clarity in the US pertaining to stablecoins and banks now being permitted to custody crypto-assets, she sees Ubitquity offering an “autonomous” future-compatible settlement platform through its SmartEscrow offering to the future decentralized finance (DeFi) real estate industry.

She added that LavaTrust Consultancy is looking forward to working with Ubitquity so that they can keep innovating and offer “real value to the real estate closing industry together.”

Ubitquity has several Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) tools currently available on its “unanimity” platform, that it has integrated across key industries such as aviation and real estate for escrow and title closing support, title abstracting, digital, hybrid, and paper notary support, smart contract management, and secure document management.

Ubitquity can also help out with “regulatory-compliant” digital token sales, integration consulting, and various other services. The availability of each offering “depends on the regulatory body (SEC, FINMA) exemption chosen by its tokenization clients,” the company clarified.

In August 2020, Ubitquity had partnered with Washington-based Rainier Title, which aims to offer the “highest levels” of real property title and escrow services.

Through the partnership, Ubitquity will create a platform for issuing tokenized property titles and parallel records of conveyances for Rainier.

Source

Feb 19 2021

Southeast Asia’s Funding Societies, an Online Capital Formation Platform, Reports S$2 Billion in Business Financing Disbursals

Southeast Asia-based Funding Societies, a digital financing platform, has revealed that it has made S$2 billion (appr. $1.5 billion) in disbursals of business financing to SMEs across the region as the company enters its sixth year of offering loans.

Funding Societies’ management noted that the amount is partly crowdfunded by more than 200,000 retail investors on its platform and has been disbursed through 3.7 million+ different loans.

Funding Societies reported S$ 850 million (appr. $640 million) in disbursals last year, meanwhile, its platform default rate managed to stay below 2% during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an effort to reduce its portfolio risk during 2020, Funding Societies had tightened up its credit underwriting criteria so that only quality notes would get crowdfunded. The platform also focused on companies that were likely to do well during the pandemic.

These high-performing industries include healthcare, medical supplies, transportation, among several others. Funding Societies reported an 18% growth in platform investors since January 2020.

Big Four auditing firm Ernst & Young’s 2020 ASEAN SME Transformation Survey has revealed that 68% of the surveyed 1,200 SMEs across the six major ASEAN nations (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam) are open to doing business with non-traditional lending platforms.

Non-traditional lenders may be appealing because of their greater speed and convenience. Small and medium-sized enterprises may prefer the faster and more flexible loan approval process and the digital know-your-customer (KYC) processes, which usually don’t require asset security or visiting physical bank locations.

At present, there’s an annual trade financing gap of approximately $150 billion in Asia, according to estimates provided by the Asian Development Bank. Around 60% of firms have had their applications rejected when applying for trade financing, the bank noted, while pointing out that these businesses did not proceed with the trade due to the lack of funding.

Kelvin Teo, Co-founder and Group CEO of Funding Societies, stated:

“We’re thrilled to reach this major milestone before we even realised it. It is a momentous occasion and encouragement for us. There is much more to do, as we continue to serve the needs of SMEs and Investors in the region. We’re grateful to raise Series C funding last year, enabling us to further help SMEs even amidst uncertain times.”

As reported earlier this month, Singapore based Funding Societies had announced the expansion of operations into Thailand. The online capital formation platform will operate under a crowdfunding license authorized by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to a note from Funding Societies, the company worked for more than a year with regulators to set up operations in the country.

Funding Societies currently operates in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Thailand will be the fourth country where the marketplace will operate in its six years of activity. Funding Societies notes that it is the only SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia to be licensed in four countries.

Source

Feb 18 2021

Blockchain Platform Qtum Teams Up with Blockpass to Provide On-Chain KYC Services

Blockchain platforms Qtum and Blockpass have teamed up in order to deliver on-chain (or blockchain-based) Know-Your-Customer (KYC) services.

As part of the agreement, Qtum will be providing subsidies to “specific” members looking to achieve regulatory compliance through Blockpass’s On-chain KYC solutions.

Adam Vaziri, CEO at Blockpass, stated:

“We’ve known and been fans of the Qtum team and network for a long time, and it’s great to have the opportunity to work closely with them. The Qtum network is innovative, and we’re excited to be able to bring the benefits and possibilities of On-chain KYC to developers and users alike. Facilitating fast, simple and efficient regulatory compliance on Qtum creates more opportunities for everyone, and spreads the phenomenon of On-chain KYC to an even wider audience.”

Qtum Co-founder Jordan Earls noted that on-chain KYC will become a vital component for many different protocols on the decentralized web or Web 3.0. He added that instead of hindering or inhibiting innovators who are focused on complying with regulations while enabling new technologies, the Qtum Foundation would “like to support those builders by backing Blockpass’ expansion to the Qtum blockchain.”

Earls added:

“Blockpass’ solution has exceeded our expectations when it comes to cost, which is an order of magnitude cheaper than traditional services, and its ability to only allow non-sensitive pieces of information to touch the blockchain.”

Qtum is an open-source, public (or permissionless) blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that aims to leverage the security of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) along with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) smart contracts.

Secured by a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, Qtum has introduced its own Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP) that allows specific blockchain or DLT settings to be modified, “leading to the possibility of increasing Qtum’s block size without the need for a hard fork” or backwards incompatible upgrade.

Blockpass is a digital identity verification provider that aims to offer a “one-click” compliance gateway to financial services and other regulated sectors. Through the Blockpass platform, users are able to create, store, and manage a “data-secure” digital identity that may be used for a complete ecosystem of services, token purchases and to also gain access to “regulated industries.”

Blockpass is reportedly offering a 90% discount on its services in order to support clients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blockpass, which claims to be a pioneer of On-chain KYC, is a “fast, comprehensive” KYC and AML screening software-as-a-service for blockchains, crypto, DeFi and other regulated sectors. The platform offers various compliance benefits such as “pay-as-you-go,” no setup costs, no integration required, free-of-cost testing, and “immediate launch” services.

Source

Feb 18 2021

Congress is blaming Robinhood, not Reddit

Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, very much occupied the hot seat in today’s hearing before the House Financial Services Committee over January’s market volatility.

None of the representatives seemed particularly interested in putting the screws to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and many seemed to give Keith Gill the same props the rest of us did.

These aren’t the market manipulators you are looking for

Gill, in all fairness, was the most likeable character involved, introducing his remarks by saying “A few things I am not: I am not a cat and I am not an accredited investor.” Gill, who really started this chain of events by posting about his investment into GameStop in June 2019, even doubled down on his opinion that GME remains a good buy today, at current prices. This is despite the fact that wild GME trading has attracted criminal investigation.

That lack of scrutiny towards Gill and Huffman does much to quell widespread fear that the events surrounding explosive trading in GameStop (GME) shares at the end of January would kick off probes into social media platforms’ role in potential market manipulation.

This is even as the House Antitrust Subcommittee announced today more hearings to scrutinize the biggest players in social media. Reddit, for now, seems to have flown under the radar.

Congressman Warren Davidson, who sits on the committee, noted this rare area of consensus, telling Cointelegraph: “I was hopeful right out of the gate because early on in the news cycle AOC was sticking up for the Reddit users, saying these people should have a right to trade. And then Ted Cruz, on the other end of the political spectrum said, ‘well, we agree.’”

Tenev’s business model

Though broadly, Republicans were more lenient than Democrats in addressing Robinhood’s activity, and especially the firm’s controversial shut-off of buying but not selling of GME and other high-volatility stocks, everybody wanted answers from Tenev.

The nature of Robinhood’s revenue model, which is based on the sale of order flow, while advertising itself as commission-free, fell under mass scrutiny, as did it’s dependence on a $3 billion injection of capital to meet collateral requirements.

“I believe a vulnerability was clearly exposed in your business model,” said Congressman Anthony Gonzales while questioning Tenev. “We just can’t live in a world where my constituents can have their shares liquidated if you can’t make a capital call.”

Many called out Robinhood’s claims to be busy democratizing finance. Tenev consistently pushed the figure of $35 billion as Robinhood users’ total gains, which Rep. Jim Himes said “you and anybody else schooled in finance know is meaningless without a rate-of-return.”

But while today’s hearing revealed a lot of hostility towards Tenev, it wasn’t all that educational.

Despite Chairwoman Maxine Waters’ admonition that “This is not political theater at all,” there didn’t seem to be any concerted sense of solutions to the epic trading that fueled GameStop’s (GME) meteoric rise at the end of January.

Real-time solution?

Some proposals, including from Tenev himself, as well as Davidson, were that the situation would not have developed at all if the U.S. had trading that settled the day of, rather than two days later — termed T-0 rather than T-2. Tenev noted “The existing 2-day period to settle trades exposes investors and the system to risk.”

Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel, which he described as “the largest market maker in the world,” disputed the likelihood of a real-time system for securities trading in the next several years, saying: “The issue is everything has to work perfectly.” Real-time trading, he said, “requires that every bit of the workflow is perfectly synchronized across the parties.” Davidson disagreed, saying “Clearly in your business the technology exists for trading firms that are engaged in high-frequency trading.”

Davidson noted the potential role of blockchain. The potential of security tokens to solve issues with intermediaries and brokers has been one of the long-promised benefits of blockchain, though that is changing.

Today’s hearing was just the beginning, Chairwoman Waters affirmed. She said the committee aimed to hold two more with different witnesses.

Congress is blaming Robinhood, not Reddit

Source