We are on a mission to make crowdfunding accessible to the whole world.

Our Pre-Sale just sold out and our main ICO will begin within the next few months.

So how are we going to transform a marketplace in a multi-billion dollar industry? And how can we be sure that we will be the new Kickstarter for Blockchain?

1. Benefits both token holders and founders (not shareholders)

Crowdfunding is one of the main ways that small businesses can raise capital and is set to outstrip venture capital funding this year.

Whilst major platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo may seem philanthropic in their aim to give the ‘the little guy’ a chance to compete on a global stage, they are backed by equity shareholders. This means they have a vested interest in only accepting projects that are going to make them money.

Acorn runs through our own digital currency — the OAK token, an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum — one of the most stable and scaleable blockchains.

The main benefit of running our platform on a digital token, is that we can re- orientate the commercial model around crowdfunding. Effectively we can crowdfund crowdfunding, meaning that token buyers — early contributors to Acorn — can benefit from the increased utility of the token as the platform grows.

As a consequence of this, project founders will then benefit from a platform that is accessible to any country without the same commercial restrictions as the leading crowdfunding platforms. Founders will also receive the full amount of contributions pledged to them without having to pay fees.

The OAK currency aligns everyone for the same common aim. That is the key to the success of the whole platform. Being able to re-orientate the business model and take the $35 billion+ crowdfunding industry, and make it free, is monumental.

2. Accessible to the whole world (not just developed countries)

It’s important to understand that crowdfunding is not an easy thing to do the way it currently stands. The biggest problem is access, for example, many parts of the world can’t currently access major platforms like Kickstarter, which only accept 22 countries worldwide (mostly developed) There is incredible innovation happening in many parts of the world but no financial support to get their ideas realised.

We’re working with nationally recognised accelerators globally, who are helping connect us to the entrepreneurs and start-ups in those countries that need it most. Using leading local accelerators helps the platform to grow quickly, and shows us to be a global platform with a global reach.

We’re focusing intensely on the user experience to make our platform compatible in different countries. For example, in many developing countries, users may only be able to access the platform on a small laptop or smart phone with a slow connection speed. We’ll be looking closely at UI and UX to deal with many different use cases and different types of users.

We’ve got David Ives ex-CTO of Crowdcube on board as a technical advisor who is adding his own lengthy expertise on how to build a successful global crowdfunding platform.

It’s only early days and already we’ve had 160+ projects from all over the world apply for our platform. Some examples include; a bakery and cooking school in Nigeria, a sustainable meal worms for food project, a biotech exo-hand project, and AI aircraft maintenance software. It’s exciting to see the level of interest we’re getting and the variety of projects submissions coming in.

3. We WON’T charge fees (not 8.5%+)

Major crowdfunding platforms are equity backed meaning that they favour accepting projects that are likely to meet their goal and make them a return. Community and pro-social projects do not usually fall into this remit.

To show that you’re likely to meet your funding goal, you’ll need at least a prototype and/or existing social traction. This requires significant existing start-up capital.

If you do succeed at getting on the platform you may either end up walking away with nothing as a result of All Or Nothing funding, or paying at least 8.5% combined platform and card transaction fees.

We’re solving these two major barriers by creating a platform that is accessible to any legal and ethical project in any country with zero fees to the founders.

4. Strong Legal and Ethical Principles

Whilst we are opening up crowdfunding to the world, we will ensure that we maintain a high standard of ethics in the projects we accept on our platform.

We have two non-negotiable principles that we adhere to when we accept projects;

1) It has to be legal — We will determine legality by EU and Gibraltar law.

2) It has to be ethical — this means that is cannot be harmful to humans, animals or the environment.

To determine legality we will have in-house moderators who will decide whether or not a project is legal. If there is any doubt this will be passed on to our legal advisors. Our ethics process will be made up of a possible two stage process including an ethics board, which if deemed inconclusive would then progress to community voting.

We chose to register our company in Gibraltar as it has the clearest legal distinction between a digital utility token and a security token. We have notified the financial authority in Gibraltar that we are running our ICO and our token is not an investment security — they came back with no objection. This gives an extra reassurance to our token holders, that there will not be any legal prosecution on our end.

5. Our OAK token will have real utility (and not be a risk as a security)

In the current ICO space, utility tokens are much more openly available to people. We have steered away from security tokens as we don’t think they are as strong as utility tokens, there are enormous legal challenges facing them coming up including possible regulation in many western countries.

Our token will have real utility — the OAK token will be used for all transactions in our crowdfunding hub, post-campaign marketplace, support services and point-of-sales payment app. Our hard cap during the ICO period ensures scarcity creating supply and demand.

Crowdfunding is an expansive platform in itself — every project that lists on the platform will have to find its own backers to meet their funding goal. This brings hundreds or potentially thousands of backers to the platform for each new project ensuring utility of the token, and free marketing to help us grow further.

We want to be world famous for bringing funding to start ups and to communities globally that need it the most. Giving people the power to take control over their own life in a much more accessible way, whilst also being supported by accelerator partners in a global network, will be a huge achievement for us.

Our journey continues, as we ramp up towards our main ICO. Over the next few months we will have more developers come on board to create our global platform, as well as conducting many more conversations with accelerators globally.

Join us on our journey to make crowdfunding free on Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter.

More information about the Acorn platform can be found in our whitepaper.