21 March 2019, AtoZ Markets - Iconic Lab is the first decentralized Venture Capital groupm, which is powered by a Token sales accelerator program. Despite the crypto winter, the venture capital group helped blockchain startups fundraise close to €20 million in 2018. The company's main focus is to provide the tools and guidance to help blockchain ventures to successfully raise capital and fulfill their vision.
Founded in early 2017, over 500 startups have already applied to Iconic Lab's token sale accelerator program. Of which, the Iconic Lab's professional investment committee has selected only 9 startups to join the program.
About Iconic Lab: World's first decentralised VC group
Iconic Lab is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. The decentralised venture capital group also opened offices in New York and London in 2018. Meanwhile, FinLab AG, a publicly-traded German FinTech company builder, and investor made a strategic investment into Iconiq Lab in late 2017. Iconiq Lab collaborates with FinLab AG on the management of a €100 million EOS venture fund backed by block.one, the publisher of EOS. Iconiq Lab assists in due diligence for fund investments and helps develop the fund’s companies, leading their EOS ICO campaigns.
The decentralised venture capital group created its own token, called INCQ. Tokenholders will have a premium membership right into the exclusive presales of the companies which take part in Iconic Lab's token sale accelerator program. Already, Iconiq Lab has raised approximately €2.5 million in ICNQ token sales, of which there are 20+ premium club members and over 5,000 retail holders. The success of Iconic Lab proves that OECD's stance on ICO could be right, until there is no regulation, ICOs are unlikely to replace the orthodox venture capital means for blockchain startups fundraising.
Iconic Lab interview: Blockchain Startups Fundraising 2.0
For more insights into this unique accelerator program of Iconic Lab, AtoZMarkets team has interviewed Patrick Lowry, Managing Partner and CEO at Iconiq Lab Holding GmbH. Find out, how Iconic Lab helped Blockchain startups fundraise €20 million and learn the vision behind the decentralised VC group.
AtoZ Markets: "To start, can you tell us a little about Iconic Holding, how it started & the vision behind?"
Patrick Lowry: "Iconic is a crypto asset management firm with an HQ in Frankfurt and offices in London and New York. We believe that the biggest use case of cryptographic and distributed ledger technology is the $508 trillion global financial market, where every financial and real-world asset can, and will, be tokenized. We are building the financial framework for the distributed crypto economy to offer premium crypto investment opportunities for institutional and retail investors alike.
We began as Iconic Lab, a decentralized VC club and token sale accelerator program that finances and develops early-stage projects, preparing them for an ICO or STO. Iconic Lab onboarded 9 projects in 2018, of which we helped 8 fundraise more than $500k, roughly $20 million in total, with their ICO’s planned for later in 2019. We created our own ICNQ token, a premium membership right for holders into the exclusive presales of the companies which graduate our accelerator program, raising roughly $2.5M in the ICNQ sale.
From there we launched Iconic Funds, an issuer, and manager of a series of regulated crypto asset index funds that offer diversified exposure to the growth of the emerging crypto economy. The first fund will be going live in early Q2 2019, and pay its crypto industry-low 1% management fee exclusively in ICNQ tokens it purchases from the open market.
Rather than keep the regulated and enterprise-grade infrastructure for Iconic Funds to ourselves like many asset managers do, we have decided to make it available to any manager with a crypto strategy that would like to launch their own fund on our newly announced Asset-Management-as-a-Service platform, AMaaS. AMaaS is a 360-degree unified solution for crypto asset management that offers any prospective crypto asset manager best-in-class market data, trade execution, custody, banking, legal and more for their own regulated fund. AMaaS optimizes the performance of any crypto asset management strategy!"
Iconic Lab's new vision: Focus goes to a tokenized economy
AtoZ Markets: "We saw that you just rebranded - what’s the reasoning behind?"
Patrick Lowry: "As you can see, Iconic has evolved significantly since Iconiq Lab was launched in early 2017. As we continued to expand it was imperative to align each of our distinct business units to our singular vision of a tokenized, crypto economy. Thus, Iconiq Lab evolved into Iconic Holding, a premier crypto asset management firm that caters to all crypto investor risk preferences through Iconic Lab and Funds, and drives crypto investment adoption through the AMaaS platform."
AtoZ Markets: "What makes the Iconic business units stand out?"
Patrick Lowry: "Iconic values quality and professionalism above all else, and these values permeate through everything we do. Even when we launched Iconic Lab and sold the ICNQ token, we did not move forward doing so until we received a “No Action Letter” from our regulator in Germany, the BaFin, after many months of discussions. Further, we have adopted best-practices from the traditional financial industry whether it be the rigorous due diligence our team performs on investment opportunities for the Lab, or the structuring and regulatory compliance measures we undertake for Iconic Funds’ index funds. Our ultimate goal is to provide our investors and clients the same quality assurances they have come to expect from traditional asset management firms, translating this to the world’s fastest growing asset class, crypto."
AtoZ Markets: "What do you think the next few years will hold for blockchain-based applications in the blockchain market/field?"
Patrick Lowry: "It is inevitable that DLT and blockchain technology will penetrate every single industrial vertical in one form or another. The use cased of the underlying technology range from banking and supply chain to healthcare and government. The distributed economy is right around the corner, and incumbent corporates should be prepared for it.
The biggest use case that largely goes undiscussed, however, is the $508 trillion global financial economy. It is inevitable that all financial assets as well as tangible, real-world assets, will be tokenized. At Iconic, we have built the framework to manage these assets properly through AMaaS, the backbone of our own crypto index funds. Rather than keeping this to ourselves, we are offering AMaaS to any prospective crypto asset manager to optimize the management of their own crypto portfolios. We believe if you cannot manage crypto assets by 2025, you will not be managing any client assets."
The strategy behind Iconic Lab's token sale accelerator program
AtoZ Markets: "On what criteria do you evaluate investment opportunities?"
Patrick Lowry: "For Iconic Funds’ crypto asset index funds, we adopted a passive investment strategy. We believe that as financial instruments such as stocks, bonds and derivatives are secured on-chain and institutions adopt crypto it will drive exponential growth of the market capitalization of crypto assets. Inevitably, we believe the $508 trillion global financial economy will be tokenized and offer our investors diversified exposure to the growth of this revolution as the crypto asset market explodes.
For Iconic Lab’s accelerator program we value projects that have a working product with a genuine use case of blockchain or distributed ledger technology and is on the cusp of being ready for an ICO or STO. We place a high emphasis on the project’s team in our evaluation and prefer it being a group that has demonstrated value generation for others in prior work or life experiences. We generally work with early-stage projects in the Lab, but are happy to consult large corporates that are aiming to build a distributed blockchain layer in their already existing business model."
Are you planning on a blockchain startup and need help from a decentralised venture capital group? Don't hesitate and contact Iconic Lab now.