We’ve been talking about how we’re going to change crowdfunding, but what does that really mean? With thousands of crowdfunding platforms to choose from, what makes us different? Why would backers and founders choose us over Kickstarter or Indiegogo?And why are crowdfunding experts are calling us “crowdfunding 2.0”?

The answer lies in breaking down barriers using these three words: Access, Success and Transparency.

Access

Did you know that only 1.9% of crowdfunding revenue goes to developing countries?

We accept any legal and ethical project worldwide — reaching parts of the world under-served by crowdfunding.

Integrated platform training and support to help inexperienced founders.

Seamless and free blockchain payments system — minimal transaction costs

Project Incentive Fund — we incentivise early adoption of the Acorn platform and provide starting bonuses to promising projects

Read Amani’s story to learn more

Success

Did you know that 78% of crowdfunding projects fail to meet their funding goal?

Acorn offer’s integrated marketing tools and services as part of our crowdfunding engine. These will be backed by data from previous campaigns, helping founders make the right marketing decisions, and giving them access to lists of backers who supported similar projects in the past.

Accelerators will perform project verification and founder mentorship to support new founders, and validate legitimacy of projects.

The Acorn marketplace will offer additional Acorn, and 3rd party services to aid in the funding campaign and subsequent product delivery.

Founders will be given the option of withdrawing funds at milestones during their campaign to use within the marketplace for extra reach

Read Nancy’s story to learn more.

Transparency

Did you know that fear of fraud is often cited as a reason for backers not contributing to crowdfunding campaigns?

All transactions will be made via OAK, providing transparency. Blockchain gives the option for the founder to display all spending publicly from the raise to the delivery stage. Backers can see where money is being spent thereby increasing trust in a project and making backers more willing to support projects.

Projects use Acorn’s payment gateway to purchase external products, in both fiat or tokens. These transactions are also recorded on our transparency ‘app’.

Smart contract based milestones can be implemented to only release funds when certain criteria are met. These can be instituted even before the funding target has been raised, giving projects access to cash early on and increasing their odds of success.

Introducing the Acorn Platform

Watch our animation to understand how our platform will change crowdfunding.

Changing our Tokenomics

Why are we changing our token model?

The crypto and ICO market have changed drastically in the past six months, and we would be foolish not to adapt to those changes.

Our old token sale model, with the larger hard cap and very high public token allocation of 80% was decided at a time when the trend within ICOs was to aim for one large raise only. It was easier to sell out at the time, and the uncertainties surrounding ICO hype and incoming regulation, made it a safer bet to raise funds immediately to get the funding stage over with.

The market has changed since then. There is still regulatory uncertainty, but going for one large raise is not standard practice anymore.

We’ve therefore listened to feedback from our community and made the following changes to our token model:

Our New Token Model

The lower number of tokens in public circulation means our initial market cap will be much smaller. This benefits our existing token holders as the impact of changes in demand will be much larger.

As for Acorn, we are confident that with our new, more robust revenue model and higher company token allocation, we will have sufficient funding to develop our platforms and establish a thriving, global startup ecosystem.

And in response to community suggestions, the higher company allocation also acts as a reassurance that we as a company have a long term vested interest in the token’s value. Half of the company allocation will be locked for up to 2 years, binding the success of the token to our gain.

Our ICO Date

We have postponed the ICO dates by approximately one month. The new dates are now 26th May until 24th June 2018.

Everyone hates delays. So do we.

The reasons for postponing are twofold. Both are crucial for the success of Acorn and the OAK token, leaving us no choice but to push the date back.

1) The changes we’ve made to our platform and token model represent a MAJOR revamp of Acorn’s whole business model. In addition, our value proposition to potential ICO contributors has gotten much better.

All these changes however, require a complete revision of all our documentation and updating our existing community with these changes. From a logistical perspective, this means that we need to revise all of our documentation including the whitepaper, with lots of modelling required to ensure our new proposition is watertight, both commercially and legally. Our legal advisors will require time for a thorough review of the new document and token model, so as to ensure OAK’s status as purely a utility token, is not threatened in any way. With such huge advancements in our platform model, we also need time to spread awareness and market our relaunched proposition. More partnerships are also in the works — these conversations take time, and we’ll have some pivotal announcements to make in the coming month.

2) The cryptocurrency market has dropped significantly in the past several weeks, doubtless creating large losses (at least on paper) for many investors.

It stands to reason that this has also killed many a potential contributor’s mood for participating in another ICO. The odds of selling out our ICO in the immediate conditions are extremely low. We hope that last week’s slight rebound can be sustained so that we enter a more promising phase where contributors are willing to participate in ICOs and take some risks again.

Either way, we do fully expect market conditions to recover in the coming weeks and the new dates will therefore give us a much better chance of selling our our ICO.

Listing on HitBTC

We are delighted to announce that OAK will be listed on HitBTC once the ICO is completed and the tokens are unlocked.

HitBTC has a daily volume of over $200M and is listed as the 10th largest exchange in an article by Bloomberg last month.

With our social following growing faster than ever, influential experts in blockchain and crowdfunding supporting us, and more exciting partnerships in the pipeline, we are shaping up to be in the best possible position for the main sale to begin.

For more information on how Acorn are changing crowdfunding and to sign up to our mailing list, visit our brand new website.