Estonian blockchain startup Funderbeam has announced a €2 million investment by Japanese investor and incubator Mistletoe toward the firm’s expansion efforts beyond Europe into Asia.
Estonia’s Funderbeam, a blockchain startup that develops tools to research, invest and trade in private companies is gaining an investor in Tokyo-based Mistletoe, an incubator and investor in startups. Mistletoe joins the likes of prolific industry investor Draper Associates, Thomson Reuters among others as investors in the European startup.
Funderbeam’s goal is to ultimately build an always-open stock exchange platform, based on blockchain technology. The platform, which aims to connect investors and startups beyond all borders takes away the barriers, hurdles and complexities of a traditional stock market.
“Using blockchain technology we aim to show the stock markets how technology can turn the sector around. For the first time ever, early stage investors can choose both how much to invest, and how long to keep the investment”, explained Kaidi Ruusalepp, chief executive and founder of Funderbeam, speaking to TechCrunch in the past.
The Estonian firm built a data-intelligence platform for investors looking into the startup scene during its launch in 2013. Last year, the company evolved to its next phase by developing a platform for funding and trading in private startups. Funderbeam claims to have facilitated investments of over €2 million since, with trades totaling over 100,000 EUR across 80 countries.
Ruusalepp revealed details of her firm’s latest investor during Slush Tokyo, a startup industry event.
She stated:
Our vision has always been to become the global stock exchange for startups. We’ve built the world’s first blockchain-powered always-open exchange, and now it’s time to scale outside of Europe.
With its investment, Mistletoe will work alongside Funderbeam toward the latter’s expansion strategy in multiple Asia-Pacific markets. “According to our own data, Asia has been growing at a much higher rate than Europe and North America,” explained Ruusalepp, underlining the reason toward looking at the far east that also provides “less competition and more progressive regulations.”
In similar news, a notable blockchain-based marketplace effort to connect investors and startups is taking shape in Thailand, headed by the Stock Exchange of Thailand – the country’s national stock exchange.
The marketplace is being developed specifically for startups before extending to include small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at a later time. Over 600 companies have already registered with the national stock exchange as institutional authorities join the race to establish viable financing and investment solutions for small-scale startups.
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