Crowdfunding goes blockchain

 Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a method of crowdfunding used by companies whose business model is based on crypto currencies. It is used by start-ups to bypass the arbitrary and regulated capital-raising process required by venture capitalists or banks. Seeking to raise €700,000 for its new ICO marketplace, the Barcelona-based platform has already secured more than €900,000 from more than 198 investors. The project will remain open to investors until it hits €1.1m. The money raised in the new round will be used to create Cell.Market, an investment marketplace for biotechnology and health via ICOs. The task of Capital Cell will be harness the knowledge of the best experts in the Healthcare & Biomedicine fields to analyse and filter what it considers to be the best investment opportunities for the biotech firms. Furthermore, Capital Cell is also looking to create its own cryptocurrency, the CELL. “Blockchain is a mighty development of the Internet, and it has huge disruptive potential. It means increased decentralisation, security, and transactional possibilities, and it opens a world of new paths for personal health and large-scale healthcare organisation. Anyone who is serious about investing in the Healthcare revolution must start looking this way,” Daniel Oliver, founder of Capital Cell, told  European Biotechnology Magazine.

Capital Cell was one of the first equity crowdfunding platforms that specialised in life sciences and biotech projects in Europe (see European Biotechnology Magazine, Summer issue 2017). In 2017, in addition to Spain, the company entered into the UK market. According to its founder Daniel Oliver, 80% of Spanish people still don’t trust both online investments and payments. Blockchain could help to sort this out. “Bringing into the system the transparency required will give a boost to the whole industry, so that the old grey-haired investor will have the ultimate technologic tool knocking on the door. My feeling is that this time, this new tool may be powerful enough to re-shape the whole thing,“ states Oliver. Cell.Market aims to explain how to invest in an ICO and Oliver spelled out why Blockchain is likely to change healthcare. “We are starting to see the rise of some of the crowdinvesting models (particularly crowdlending) and a few new products, such as crowdfunds, but the real revolution will come with cryptocrowdfunding – if the regulators don’t blow it, naturally.”

To date, the Spanish and British company counts 24 successful investment rounds for 20 companies that are developing new treatments and technologies for health applications. Last year, Capital Cell raised more than €1m for the Spanish biotech campaign Bionure with more than 250 investors – the largest crowdfunding campaign in Southern Europe. Recent campaigns of Capital Cell that are running right now includeFesia and Tech4Freedom, which are both funded over 75%. 

First published in European Biotechnology Summer Edition 2018