Bancor, an Israel-based digital token project, has managed to raise $153 mln in its crowdsale on June 12, which lasted less than four hours, making it the second-largest fundraising campaign in the Blockchain industry.

Bancor enables the creation of smart tokens, which can hold one or more tokens or cryptocurrencies in reserve allowing any party to purchase or liquidate them through smart contracts directly, without any third party and in an instant way.

Token distribution

As stated in Bancor's blog on Medium, BNT for ETH contributions will be distributed immediately. The ability to transfer, purchase and liquidate BNT through the smart token’s contract will be enabled gradually during a time span estimated at seven days following the closing of the fundraiser.

As for the token distribution, 50 percent of BNT will be issued to the contributors in the fundraiser, 20 percent allocated to partnerships, community grants and public bounties, 20 percent to the foundation’s long-term operating budget and 10 percent to founders, team members, advisors and early contributors. Founders and team contributors will be subject to a three-year vesting schedule.

Big investors

Reportedly, over 10,000 buyers participated in the ICO including venture capitalist Tim Draper, who joined Bancor’s board. Among those announced to be contributing funds was Blockchain Capital, an investment firm that focuses on startups in the space, and Token-as-a-Service (TaaS), the first-ever tokenized closed-end fund dedicated to Blockchain assets. The latter is said to have invested 352 BTC, equivalent to $1 mln, in Bancor, establishing itself as a prominent institutional investor in this year’s most talked-about crowdsale.

Co-founded by Blockchain protagonists Konstantin Pysarenko, Ruslan Gavrilyuk, Dmytro Chupryna and Maksym Muratov, TaaS is utilizing the Ethereum Blockchain and its own cryptographic audit technology and allows investors to capitalize on the rise of Blockchain markets. In terms of the scope of investment, TaaS is being a rather active player in the Blockchain space, investing in cryptocurrencies and tokens. It is also pursuing the objective to invest in Blockchain projects built by progressive-thinking teams that solve pressing real-world problems or pioneering in expanding the potential of technology.

This latest investment in Bancor is a good diversification of TaaS’ portfolio. TaaS will soon announce additional investments before the end of its first quarter since its token allocation event ended. TaaS’ first profit-sharing is scheduled at the beginning of August.

Ruslan Gavrilyuk, CEO of TaaS, commented:

”Cooperation between TaaS and Bancor brings a lot of advantages to both companies. TaaS' financial portfolio, management expertise and Bancor's technical experience will allow the creation of a fundamentally new set of liquid smart tokens, powered by Bancor’s protocol.”

Strategic partnership

The strategic partnership between Bancor and TaaS allows for the further development of TaaS’ fund infrastructure through the faster design of token baskets and other financial smart tokens. As a major supporter of Bancor’s protocol in Eastern Europe and in the Russian-speaking community, TaaS will invest in other Blockchain ventures pursuing financial instruments that bring efficiency to crypto trading.

After three months of due diligence, the management of TaaS met last week in Tel Aviv with Bancor’s founders at the seventh edition of the d10e Conference to finalize the terms and conditions of a strategic investment and a long-term partnership.

This marks the third investment since TaaS raised $7.6 mln through its own ICO in April. The first investment TaaS made was of 500 ETH (equivalent to $185,000) in VPN Blockchain startup Mysterium, which raised 68,629 ETH (equivalent to $14.4 mln) in under 45 minutes on May 30. The second investment TaaS made was of 70 BTC (equivalent to $200,000)in Blockchain identity management startup Sphre, which started its token allocation event on June 1 and has so far raised 1,370 BTC (equivalent to $4 mln).