Investment Platforms and Marketplaces

Jun 07 2021

CoinList to Facilitate Token Sale for Swarm, a System of P2P Nodes Supporting Decentralized Storage, Communication

Digital asset platform CoinList notes that they are pleased to confirm that the registrations for the Swarm Token Sale are now open (as of June 3, 2021).

The CoinList team describes Swarm as a system of peer-to-peer (P2P) networked computing nodes that create a “decentralized” storage and communication service. The Swarm token sale is scheduled to start on CoinList’s platform on June 14, 17:00 UTC and “the deadline to register is June 11, 12:00 UTC.”

CoinList writes in its blog post that they are welcoming all “eligible” CoinList users to register for this offer.

As noted by CoinList, the sale has two different options:

Option 1 will “run from June 14 2021, 17:00 UTC to June 15 2021, 04:59 UTC”
Option 2 will “run from June 15 2021, 17:00 UTC to June 16 2021, 04:59 UTC”

Please note: Option 1 and Option 2 “share the same BZZ token pool,” the CoinList team explained while adding that Option 2 will “only occur if there are excess tokens from Option 1.” By registering for the sale, eligible users “will register for both options. Additionally, please note that the two options will have separate, independent sale queues,” the company noted.

As explained by CoinList:

“Swarm is a system of peer-to-peer networked nodes that create a decentralized storage and communication service. The system is economically self-sustaining thanks to a built-in incentive system enforced through smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.”

Swarm’s credo is “to shape the future towards a self-sovereign global society and permissionless open markets,” the blog post noted while pointing out that these core principles “drove development” with a special focus on (decentralized application) dApp developers, organizations, enterprises, and activists “on every blockchain.” For instance, use-cases include social media dApps, free press, archives, blockchain, and DeFi data.

Here are some reasons why CoinList claims it is looking forward to more updates from Swarm:

Persistent Technology — Swarm data is “readily accessible due to cross-node replication and erasure coding.” Specifically, data is “divided into “chunks” and redundantly stored throughout the network.” This redundancy “provides continued data delivery when nodes go offline.”
Data Sovereignty — All node operators “participate in a fair data economy in which no central party controls or monetizes data.” Instead, users “own their data while node operators ensure the availability and integrity of this data.”
Aligned Economics — Users “pay for storage and communication on their own terms, rather than having their data sold to cover costs.” On the other hand, node operators are “motivated by BZZ tokens to run and maintain network nodes.”

To learn more and register for this offer, check here.

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May 29 2021

Croatia’s P2P Lending Marketplace Robo.cash Is Preparing for $5M Bond Placement in Singapore

Croatia’s Robo.cash, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace, reveals that its parent holding company, the Robocash Group, is getting ready for a $5 million bond placement in the coming days.

As noted in an update, dated May 27, 2021, by Robo.cash, the Group intends to issue bonds via the global private debt investment platform Kilde (based in Singapore). The company will be providing securities with the “maturity period of 3 months and a monthly coupon payment frequency.”

As mentioned in the announcement, the proceeds of the issuance will be directed towards helping with the expansion of the Group’s business operations in emerging markets.

Robo.cash further revealed:

“We are prepared to start an online-lending service in Sri-Lanka in the near future, and by the end of 2021, we aim to launch our first online bank in Southeast Asia.”

As confirmed in the announcement, this bond placement in Singapore will be “the first for Robocash Group” and after this initial step, the firm might “consider another issuance in a bigger amount.”

As clarified in the update, the Robocash Group bonds will be “available for purchase to institutional and accredited investors only.” If you’re interested in taking advantage of this opportunity, then you can review the list of requirements to see if you qualify. For questions/queries, contact [email protected]

On May 22, 2021, the Deputy CFO Robocash Group Grigorii Shikunov took part in a webcast for investors in which the company shared key insights about their platform.

As noted in the update:

“Q1 of 2021 showed excellent results for Robo.cash. The platform passed new milestones, including a brand-new website design and integrating a new loan originator, and set 3 new records. The amount of new users grew by 145% QoQ, while the net deposits increased by 50% QoQ.”

Some other highlights shared by the company:

Revenue for the Q1 “increased by 49% QoQ and reached 58.5 M USD.”
The net profit in Q1 2021 “reached 7.6 M USD.”
Total assets complete the solid Q1 “growing by 15% and reaching 112.9 M USD.”

Earlier this month, the Robo.cash team announced that new types of loans would be available in the Philippines.

Robo.cash noted that investors may expect “net annual returns of up to 12%” and like all other loan originators on Robo.cash, UnaPay offers “a full 30-day buyback guarantee on all its products.”

The announcement also mentioned:

“UnaPay provides Buy Now, Pay Later plans for purchasing goods on the Lazada eCommerce platform. The loan amount can go as high as EUR 530, with the repayment period ranging from 30 days to 6 months. In addition to the BNPL service, UnaPay offers salary-linked installment loans of up to EUR 870 paid within a maximum of 12 months.”

UnaPay was established in the Philippines in December of last year and it’s run by Digido Finance Corp. The firm is a “duly registered corporation with a Certificate of Authority to Operate as a Financing Company issued by SEC.” For the time of its operation, Digido Finance Corp. has “issued over 750,000 EUR worth of loans.”

Source

May 24 2021

Marketplace Lender Initiative Ireland Partners with Fairfield Real Estate Finance to Lend €600 Million for Housing

Initiative Ireland has partnered with Fairfield Real Estate Finance in a project designed to lend €600 million to build 5,000 homes over the next three years.

According to a release, the Irish marketplace lender was chosen by Fairfield as a joint venture partner to enter the Housing Construction Finance Market in Ireland.

Initiative Ireland seeks to finance the new homes working with small, medium, and large-scale developers to deliver residential housing to the market. The joint venture is expected to create 20 finance roles at Initiative Ireland and support over 3,000 construction jobs across Ireland.

Reportedly, the Irish Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien, TD has welcomed the announcement.

Initiative Ireland specializes in funding social, affordable, and mid-market housing developments and is described as an impact finance marketplace. Supported by Enterprise Ireland as a High Potential Start-Up and headquartered at NovaUCD, the company aims to target social and environmental challenges.

Minister O’Brien TD issued the following statement:

“I welcome news of increased funding competition within the Irish Finance Market, to support the delivery of social and affordable housing, in addition to the creation of new jobs. It is also great to see Enterprise Ireland-backed companies such as Initiative Ireland, successfully attracting and building partnerships with globally recognised firms, delivering and supporting new jobs here in Ireland as we work to stabilise the jobs and housing market.”

Padraig W. Rushe, CEO, Initiative Ireland said they have worked with their impact investor community to deliver housing projects across the country, for social and environmental impact.

“We understand the urgent need for fair and flexible finance, and we aim to work with new borrowers to bring sustainability to the Irish Housing Market, helping to make housing security more accessible for everyone.”

Between a partnership with CUDA, a hub for new ventures and entrepreneurs at University College Dublin, and the announcement today, Initiative Ireland says it is now positioned to deliver over €1.5 billion of funding to the market over the next 5 years.

Chris Wilson, CEO of Fairfield Real Estate stated:

“At Fairfield, we work to support experienced commercial property developers and owners across the UK and Ireland with competitive and flexible finance. We have exclusively partnered with Initiative Ireland to provide the same value to residential developers, leveraging Initiative Ireland’s specialist skills and residential focus. We are proud to be joining their Impact Investor community.”

Initiative Ireland accepts both institutional and individual investors. Following an online accreditation process, an individual may create a private lending account. According to its website, Initiative Ireland generates returns of around 5% to 8% APR. There is is a minimum lending amount of €500.

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May 20 2021

Bosch, Ocean Protocol represented by BigchainDB, Fetch.ai Join Catena-X to Bring Expertise in Market, Mechanism, Token-based Incentive Design

Bosch, Ocean Protocol represented by BigchainDB, and Fetch.ai have all joined Catena-X, in order to bring their “collective expertise” in market, mechanism, and token-based incentive design

Catena-X is described as an “agile” ecosystem with automotive industry stakeholders. All firms taking part in Catena-X are working cooperatively on concepts for creating an open, scalable network for secure, cross-company, and standardized information and data exchange in the automotive sector.

As mentioned in a release shared with CI:

“The aim is to create uniform data and information flows throughout the automotive value chain. The Cloud-based network is to be open to all companies in the European vehicle industry as well as their global partners, users, and equipment suppliers.”

Bosch, BigchainDB, and Fetch.ai contribute “complementary” areas of expertise to token-based ecosystems into Catena-X. They’ll be supporting the ongoing development of decentralized technology and business models, along with incentive systems within Catena-X.

Dr. Nik Scharmann, Project Director, explained that “Economy of Things” at Bosch Research will aim to advance these causes (as an elected member of the Catena-X advisory board).

Dr. Scharmann remarked:

“I’m convinced that by establishing suitably organized marketplaces, along with payment and incentive systems, Europe’s diversity and individuality can be leveraged as strengths to provide an efficient and globally competitive basis for a value-based digital economy. With so many strong partners implementing Catena-X, we will quickly create a competitive data ecosystem for the European automotive industry.”

Bosch is reportedly a founding member of Catena-X, which has been running as an association in the founding stage since May 7 (Catena-X Automotive Network e.V.i.G.).

As an established IoT firm, Bosch is focused on researching an Economy of Things (EoT). As noted in the release, in the EoT, the economic aspect of interactions is “added to the IoT.”

The announcement also mentioned:

“The EoT project addresses the question of how networked devices can do business with each other for the benefit of citizens and businesses. With decades of experience in the automotive sector, Bosch also brings extensive industry expertise, which will be improved by applying EoT principles and mechanisms.”

BigchainDB GmbH will reportedly be joining Catena-X “on behalf” of Ocean Protocol, a “decentralized” data exchange protocol for data monetization. It will “bring its expertise in Web 3.0 and implementing token-based ecosystems to the multi-stakeholder consortium-led project, along with its experience in building open-source communities,” the announcement revealed.

As noted in the update:

“Ocean’s main focus will be contributing to the working group tasked with developing sustainable decentralized business models and incentive mechanisms for the Catena-X network.”

BigchainDB founder Trent McConaghy remarked:

“The automotive industry is shifting to a digital future. The digital economy is the data economy. At BigchainDB, we aim to empower organizations to create sustainable business models within this new data economy. We’re proud to contribute to Catena-X in this capacity, drawing on our years of experience in developing token-based ecosystems and decentralized business models. With the leading companies in the automotive space collaborating, we’re hopeful that Catena-X will drive impactful and lasting change in the European landscape.”

BigchainDB has been a Day 1 Member of the GAIA-X Association, which is developing a European Cloud-enabled data infrastructure. Ocean contributes to creating a data infrastructure standard for Europe that “prioritizes efficiency, security, and trustworthiness.”

Fetch.ai offers a framework for creating decentralized, autonomous AI networks to “carry out complex coordination tasks.” Its goal is to connect digital and real-life economies to “allow automation to change the way we use data.”

As noted in the release:

“Fetch.ai brings expertise in multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence, advanced cryptography, and decentralized machine learning to the Catena-X network. Its main focus will be to provide technologies for agent-based “smart” clients, secure and private sharing of information, and base-layer blockchain infrastructure.”

Fetchi.ai will be supporting advanced data analytics via its CoLearn network, a decentralized information-sharing system that is “deployed on blockchains and aggregates learning from multiple stakeholders.”

Maria Minaricova of Fetch.ai added:

“Catena-X represents the evolution of the automotive industry as it works to prioritize the digital exchange of information in order to enable new data-driven business models. Fetch.ai is excited to be a part of a consortium that understands the fundamental changes happening within the industry and looks forward to helping the ecosystem evolve and thrive.”

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May 09 2021

European P2P Lending Platform Bondora Issued Over €9M in Loans in April 2021, the Highest in a Year

European peer-to-peer lending platform Bondora recently revealed that it has issued more than €9 million in loans in April 2021, which is reportedly “the highest in 1 year.”

The Bondora team writes in a blog post (published on May 6, 2021) that this month, loan originations are “the star of the show.”

After increasing steadily from the end of 2020, the team at Bondora is now “celebrating the highest amount of loan originations since March 2020.” As confirmed in the update, “a total of €9,224,228 was issued in loans in April 2021.” The platform’s management further noted that they’re now hoping to surpass the €10 million mark for next month.

Bondora’s management also shared other notable updates from their April portfolio.

Last month, 4,175 people reportedly joined the Bondora platform, which brings ithe number of investors to 162,437. This is notably “the highest number of new investors for 2021 thus far,” Bondora revealed while adding that more than €428 million has “been invested, and investors have earned more than €52 million in returns over the last 13 years.”

The Bondora team also mentioned:

“After a fantastic March, Bondora investments continue to build on the momentum we’ve seen in Q1 and are growing steadily every month. In April, a total of €9,044,042 was invested across Bondora—the highest we’ve seen in over a year. This continuous growth in product funding is very promising. Go & Grow takes the credit for this impressive increase, as a total of €8,392,850 was invested into our most popular product. It also passed the €8M mark for the first time this year. All our investment products also showed steady increases.”

After recording these solid results in March’s collection and recovery process, Bondora claims it diverted back to “more standard yet impressive figures in April.” A total of €886,627 was “recovered across all countries, with the majority being from Estonia (€480,416) and Finland (€297,110). In April, the most recoveries were conducted during the Bailiff stage of the collection process,” Bondora confirmed.

The company also noted:

“Secondary Market activity is picking up again after dipping in February and March. €240,231 was transacted on the market, with Manual transactions, once again, making up the bulk of activity. It made up 65% of all transactions. Interestingly enough, Portfolio Manager transactions increased, and API and Manual Transactions decreased.”

Bondora added that things are now “looking good” for loan originations. Each month the total has been increasing steadily, which is quite a positive development.

Last month, a total of €9,224,228 loans were originated by Bondora, the platform’s management noted while adding that Finnish loans “show no sign of backing down as they grew by a tremendous 84% to a total of €2,554,078 loans issued.” Bondora pointed out that this is “quite the jump from the 6.4% growth rate in March.”

Bondora also mentioned that Estonian loan originations have increased as well, however, by a more modest 5.2%.

Bondora’s management concluded:

“April continues to build on the growth we’ve seen since the end of 2020. As we enter Q2, we’re feeling optimistic and excited about what the year holds. Our financial results for 2020 will also be released soon.”

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