In June, Bitcoin Magazinereported that Bitcoin investment fund Bitcoin Capital raised more than $1 million on the equity crowdfunding platform Bnk To The Future. Bitcoin Capital, a high-risk, high-return fund, is run by renowned financial journalist Max Keiser and Simon Dixon, co-founder of Bnk To The Future, an online investment website for crowdfunding small businesses mainly focused on financial innovation. They have now launched a second tranche for $5 million to invest further in the sector.
A recent Bnk To The Future press release titled “$10 million for Bitcoin and Financial Innovation, while banks scramble to adjust” reveals that, while the banks are trying to get their heads around the blockchain, Bnk To The Future relaunched its brand new platform and passed the $10 million invested mark super fast.
Sir Richard Branson was impressed enough to comment, “I like the goals on BnkToTheFuture.com where everything is open and transparent and people can see what happens with their money.”
Another campaign recently funded on the Bnk To The Future platform is StartCOINholdings, a company run by Keiser that raised all of its investment through the platform within 24 hours. But investors were able to invest using only cryptocurrency. The pitch was closed after it went into overfunding at 135 percent funded within 24 hours.
The campaign of ShapeShift, a company that allows people to exchange and spend digital assets as fast as sending an email, has more than €1.5 million pledged to it so far, with two days to go. The ShapeShift team believe that in the future assets such as gold will work the way bitcoin works, and spending them will be as easy as sending an email.
The pitch of Factom is very popular with investors right now and has already had more than €900,000 pledged. Factcom is bringing the blockchain technology to businesses after securing a contract to help the Honduran government record their land registry title deeds using bitcoin and the blockchain.
According to the press release, financial innovation and technology has found a new and innovative source of funding, and it appears that this is just the beginning of greater things to come. Bnk To The Future offers qualifying investors their first smaller investment for free.
Top banks such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs, UBS and most of the other major banks, are all trying to figure out how they can use blockchain technology, and investing in emerging financial technology. According to Santander, the blockchain technology behind Bitcoin can save banks $20 billion a year.
“We are looking to give financial innovation a home to raise finance from investors interested in funding the future of finance,” said Dixon. “We are more passionate about making banks less significant than funding technology that offers banks a cheaper way to commit more crime, but the blockchain is a technology that can be used by anybody, including banks,” was the satirical comment he gave at the recent blockchain conference filled with bankers hosted in the Barclays accelerator, after being invited to comment on their investor panel.