Chainraizer

Time is Q4 2024

Gregory, whom I've known for some months, asks me for insights about the fundraising platform he is building with a team. The thesis is simple:

"As we are approaching the end of the bull run, crypto investors will sell their cryptocurrencies. If they sell them for dollars, it will trigger a tax event. What if they could invest their cryptocurrencies in real world assets? A lot of friends are also eager for direct fundraising. Let's create a marketplace!"

Gregory wanted my marketing advice. I responded that no one will invest in startups they don't know or trust. They needed a product to appeal.

What about private companies everyone knows of? The OpenAI, SpaceX, Revolut... that everyone actually trusts? That could be a great product to appeal to investors. He then could also invest in less-known startups.

After a couple of weeks, I met the team in Paris for a nice lunch. I liked them, they liked my vision. Some emails afterwards, I was officially the COO of Chainraizer.

The Platform

The initial idea was for crypto investors to invest on a platform. The team was non technical. As we would have to pivot a couple of times and test the product, it was out of the question to have development externalized.

So I became technical myself. And I got to work. And boy did it work

Then followed a marathon of coding, 16h a day straight to deliver the frontend, backend and smart contracts for a working fundraise early Q2 on a great private equity name.

User Acquisition

After getting our first 5 users from the Coinbase Discord - as we were building on their blockchain, we installed a referral mechanism. A couple of hundred came. We then created a reward program internal to the platform to guide on actions to make.

More partnerships came to life with Binance, Kraken, influencers, event organizers... bringing us beginning of Q2 to about 5000 users on the platform.

During one event organized, we announced the first deal: SpaceX.

SpaceX Operation

SpaceX was trading at the time around 300B$ valuation, expecting a tender offer in the next few months at 400B$. We had to raise a minimum of 50k$.

We started the fundraising efforts focused on a 2 week sprint, Gregory sounded out his network to know if traditional investors would be interested.

As launch day approached, approximately 1000 users showed interest for buying onto the SpaceX sale. Only 10% of them subscribed. The threshold was not reached.

Gregory's network on the other hand completely sold out the sale.

The crypto community was just not interested in buying Real World Assets with their cryptocurrencies.

Aftermath

We pivoted our target for traditional investors. Started some acquisition mechanisms. We learned that in fintechs, and even broadly in Finance, distribution is the product.

The only options available were to raise more money, or partner with a distribution channel. We preferred a simple capital return to investors, as our team did not fit either option.

In a strange chain of events, I got on a call with Robinhood Crypto VP to discuss P.E tokenization. Months after, they announced OpenAI tokenization on their own blockchain.

And just recently, Revolut announced a distribution agreement with several P.E funds to distribute their products directly onto the platform.

The actors with the right distribution channels won the bet.

A year after this sale, SpaceX went on with its IPO at 2T$ valuation (6x the operation).