Last week, we were selected to pitch at LAUNCH Sydney, an event run by high profile Silicon Valley investor Jason Calacanis. This was the first year it had left San Francisco.

Jason Calacanis began his career as a journalist covering the dotcom boom in the US. From that he moved into the world of entrepreneurship, with the sale of his Weblogs business to AOL for $US25 million in 2005 setting him on the way to investing in the next wave of prospective tech giants.

Getting in on the ground floor at Uber is his best-known investment, but his impressive portfolio also includes a number of other unicorns, each cracking private valuations north of $US1 billion.

We went in with the understanding that there was to be one winner that would receive a $100k USD investment along with an invitation to the LAUNCH Incubator in Silicon Valley. This would be a 4 month intensive stint solely focussed on taking things to the next level and introductions to some of the larger VC funds in the US.

We were up against some stiff competition, with some platforms having already completed a funding rounds of up to $10m.

We had 3 minutes to surface the core value in the platform and win over the panel presiding over the competition. Each panel member was to deliver 2 questions each and we had another 2 minutes to answer them.

Up we went.

Each of the panel members voted for their top three of the six and the points were tallied. We were elated when it was determined that we won the top prize.

Later the following day, the winner of the coveted spot in the incubator was being decided and Jason ended up requesting that a few more of us joined.

He ended up deciding that all of us were to receive a $100k USD investment and each were invited to come to Silicon Valley and join the incubator.

This is a fantastic vote of confidence in what we’re building. This will be Jason’s first crypto investment and coming from someone who’s long been wary of the blockchain space. He identifies with the core value we are bringing by leveraging the true value DLT brings in enabling a disruptive move against the house-based casino model.

We’re very excited about the future that lies ahead.

Well done team. Stay tuned.