Rob Slater pitches DDView, a blockchain platform that lets non-technical users create regulation-compliant security tokens. Of 8 million accredited U.S. investors, only 370,000 are active, while token offerings raised over $3 billion in 2017. 10XTS targets the $21 billion early-stage funding market and is closing a $1 million seed round.
Cool. Hey, thanks everyone. I'm Rob Slater, former active duty Air Force officer having served as an Air Force research lab program manager, current member of the Ohio Air National Guard Combat Engineers of the Air Force. And I'm here this evening presenting my company, 10XTS. There are approximately 8 million in the US that are allowed to invest in unregistered Regulation D securities as accredited investors, but only 370,000 of those are active. At the same time, almost 6.5 million new startups were launched in the US in 2016, but only around 1% of those new startups actually received funding. So the JOBS Act was passed to enable regulation crowdfunding. However, crowdfunding is complex and adoption has been slow. Second, blockchain-based token offerings have raised over $3 billion this year, surpassing angel and seed rounds. And token offerings are not just limited to startups. VCs have jumped in. Blockchain Capital—
Hey, Robert. Yeah, sorry to interrupt. It looks like the slides aren't transitioning. Maybe do it— I know you're trying to, or you're using the presenter mode, but we see it as in the— okay, there we go. Now it's moving along. So maybe just take it out of presenter mode and keep going. Sorry to interrupt.
Yeah, no problem. We had this issue in trying to rehearse this. We're not actually in presenter mode. Which is weird, right? So we're trying to figure this out kind of real time.
Take it from the top.
Take it from the top. Okay, well, it sounds like y'all can kind of see the notes, but, uh, we're just gonna kind of push through, I guess, real quick. So again, uh, just kind of hit the highlights. Rob Slater, Air Force officer, served in the Air Force Research Labs, currently in the Ohio Air National Guard, a major in a combat engineering unit. And we're going to talk about 10XDS. So again, there's 8 million in the US allowed to invest in Regulation D securities as accredited investors, but only 370,000 of those are active. And at the same time, there's almost 6.5 million new startups that were launched in 2016, but roughly 1% of those actually received funding. So with the JOBS Act came out and enabled regulation crowdfunding, but that's still complex and the adoption has been pretty slow. And as you guys have seen lately with ICOs, those have come through and raised $3 billion this year, surpassing angel and seed rounds.
It looks like we're still having the same issue, Rob. Okay, there we go. Now it's back.
Now you're back.
Keep rolling.
Weird.
There we go.
We'll keep it this way then, I guess. So, uh, also there have been, um, a couple VCs have jumped in. One is Blockchain Capital. They raised a $10 million fund, uh, through a token sale recently. Um, the regulatory paths are emerging for blockchain tokens, and we believe that platforms that align with existing legal will help the technology hit mainstream. So of course, blockchain is hard. You know, it requires a lot more than code. The developer talent is in high demand. And what we developed was DD View, and we recognized these challenges and built a blockchain-based fintech software platform to help these early-stage ventures and investors raise capital funding through these regulatory-compliant blockchain tokens. And what's unique is we, we do this through an easy-to-use intuitive interface that doesn't require any programming knowledge. So DDBU allows non-coders to come in, create these blockchain tokens with all the necessary business rules to maintain governance, reporting, and compliance. So our platform enables a decentralized exchange that permits secondary market trading. Our goal is to make it easy to invest in and trade early-stage capital assets as other traditional investment platforms. Sorry about the, the slide stuff we got going on. I'm getting some feedback here real time. So anyway, this will provide investors with the needed liquidity, ultimately reducing their risk. And DDview can be tailored to support tokenization of literally any type of asset class. So in addition, the DDview platform includes built-in due diligence and monitoring, and we have multiple target market segments, initially focusing on early-stage funding, and that represents an estimated $21 billion in 2016 in the US, with our go-to-market focus with channel partnerships through angel networks, VCs, crowdfunding portals, and accelerators. So our business model— DDVU actually makes money as a hybrid SaaS model. It uses internal DDVU tokens to activate features and pay for services on a transactional basis. We also charge fees for things like issuing new asset tokens, reporting, and trading. So we're in active discussions with Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, and we have scheduled presentations for C-level and senior leadership of many others. Currently, we're in the process of finalizing our $1 million seed raise for 10XTS, but there's still room. The seed round helps us launch the upcoming DDV token sale. We're currently conducting a limited presale of DDV tokens, and we'll initiate a full public crowd sale in the spring of 2018. So again, I'm Rob Slater, the COO of 10XTS. I saw earlier I have Michael Hiles, our CEO. He's a career digital entrepreneur and also the director of Founders Institute Cincinnati. Our CTO is John Bentley, and we're already experienced in all the competencies necessary and have full careers spanning industry, government, and academia. But we've also built a strong advisory team that represents a global expertise in economics, cryptocurrency, AI, marketing, finance, in legal. So if you're interested in discussing how you can participate with us, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your time and attention, and we hope to talk to you soon.
