Fair Launch Capital

Basics

• From The Defiant (26-8-2020):

"The group provides fair launch capital, as in money that goes towards funding audits before platforms go live. The aim is to provide another option for founders, who today often have to choose between distributing a token before their project is safe enough for users, and raising money from VCs, with the likely result of concentrating ownership of their protocol. The team makes a no-strings-attached grant for founders to cover the costs of audits, without taking an early allocation of tokens or equity. Fair Launch investors have the option of buying tokens along with everyone else in the market. After the launch, the project’s community decides via a governance vote whether it will pay the grant forward to the next project that wants to do a Fair Launch. Teams could decide to pay part of the grant, the full amount, or more than what they were awarded.

While investors will be buying tokens along with everyone else, there’s the potential for them to meet quality crypto teams early on, and also the value that’s gained from belonging to a group of DeFi natives sharing ideas and connections."

History

• From The Defiant (26-8-2020):

"In the past few weeks the broad sentiment in DeFi has gone from: anti-token, to tokens only when it’s absolutely necessary in a tried and tested platform, to tokens designed to drive (crazy) activity which results in (crazy) speculation, to token before there’s even a platform. While this has attracted a flood of capital and traders to the space, it’s also spurred a fair amount of concern as releasing protocols with no audits is no longer frowned upon, but almost sought after by yield-hungry traders. Meanwhile, vegetable-themed coins are flying about, and the crazier and “ valueless” the token is, the more money it attracts. It’s got some ICO veterans clutching their pearls, but not only that. It’s also prompted a group of DeFi investors to take action. The aim is to provide another option for founders, who today often have to choose between distributing a token before their project is safe enough for users, and raising money from VCs, with the likely result of concentrating ownership of their protocol."

Team

• From The Defiant (26-8-2020):

"Gavin McDermott and Joe Gerber, investors at IDEO CoLab Ventures, and renowned crypto advisor Reuben Bramanathan. The group, which beside the core team is made up of advisors including Aave’s Stani Kulechov, Synthetix’s Kain Warwick (and, disclaimer, myself), will also help founders find the right partners and builders for their projects."

Advisors

• From their website (26-8-2020):

1. Cooper Turley
2. Stani Kulechov
3. Kain Warwick
4. Camila Russo
5. Ryan Sean Adams
6. Linda Xie
7. Brian Flynn
8. Jake Chervinksy
9. Jacob Horne
10. Jake Brukhman
11. Cyrus Younessi
12. Will Warren