Lingerie tycoon enters P2P venture capital space with ICO launch
LINGERIE tycoon Baroness Michelle Mone has teamed up with her billionaire venture capitalist partner Doug Barrowman to launch a peer-to-peer platform powered by its own dedicated cryptocurrency.
The pair have launched an initial coin offering (ICO), with a pre-sale to go live on 1 March, to develop a venture capital investment platform called EQUI.
Investors will be able to use EQUItokens to acquire stakes in venture capital projects identified by Barrowman and his team.
The coin will be a tradeable ERC-20 token and the platform will also use the Ethereum blockchain to record and speed up transactions.
A minimum investment of $100,000 is required to participate in the pre-sale, which will run from 1 March to 8 March.
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Mone, who founded the lingerie company Ultimo, and Barrowman are founders of the platform and are supported by an advisory board of entrepreneurs including Mark Pearson, the founder of MyVoucherCodes and experts within the fields of investment, cryptocurrency and law.
The core investment model will be to take equity or loan positions in innovative businesses that can demonstrate vision and scalability. These businesses may require not only capital but also expertise to steer the venture to optimisation and fulfil their true potential.
Investors who commit their tokens to underlying projects will receive 70 per cent of profits generated by projects they participate in, and a further five per cent will be awarded to those who leave their token within the platform.
The public ICO will run from 8 March to 31 March 2018 with bonuses available in the first two weeks of the sale.
“EQUI brings venture capital investing into the modern technological era and opens the investment playing-field up to non-industry professionals, enabling them to back the next hot investment that is traditionally the preserve of institutions and ultra-high net worth individuals,” Barrowman said.
“We have strong access to deal flow and the investment market generally and will be bringing our experience to the wider market. Once in a generation a new way of thinking disrupts the workings of an established industry. EQUI is that disruptor in venture capital investing and, for me, represents the final evolution of a lifetime’s work spent in the industry.”
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