Blockchain HR startup ChronoBank’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which opened only hours ago (December 15, 2016) has got off to a flying start on its first day with the announcement of $1.5 million AUD (approx $1.1m USD) in Venture Capital (VC) funding from AXL Strategic Partners.
A highly unusual move – as many VC find the ICO movement to be the Wild West of investment due to lack of compliance, regulation, jurisdiction, structure etc. AXL Strategic Partners appear to have been analysing the ICO market for some time and felt Chronobank was worthy of their first foray into the rodeo.
Chronobank aims to disrupt the short-term recruitment industry and is backed by Australian labour-hire company Edway, received confirmation of the large investment just a few hours after the ICO launched at 00:00 UTC. A memo circulated from AXL Strategic Partners, a Sydney-based venture capital fund, states:
We wish to confirm an investment of AUD$1,500,000.00 in Labor X Australia Pty Ltd for subscription in the ICO of Chronobank.I.O.
AXL Strategic Partners provide investment advice and capital for quality early stage venture capital and private equity investment opportunities on behalf of our domestic and international client base.
The partners of AXL Strategic have assessed many Blockchain technology based investment opportunities and consider your project to be of global significance.
We wish you great success in your launch.
The USD and BTC equivalents of the VC investment have been included in ChronoBank’s ICO tally.
“We are very pleased to be able to announce this significant investment on day 1,” commented Sergei Sergienko, CEO of both ChronoBank and Edway Labour Hire.
“As important as the significant financial support this brings is the confidence in our project it signals – for our clients and for further ICO investors over the next two months.”
ChronoBank’s crowdfund will end at 23:59 on 14 February 2017.
Multi-Blockchain approach
Although ChronoBank’s TIME token – which will be distributed to all ICO participants including AXL – will be hosted on Ethereum’s Blockchain, the project will use many different platforms to mint and trade Labour Hour (LH) tokens.
These time-based cryptocurrency units will be the lifeblood of the ChronoBank ecosystem, and will be used to purchase labour from freelancers around the world. Reflecting the importance of its several Blockchain partners and advisers, ChronoBank is collecting funds in several different cryptocurrencies – BTC, LTC, ETH, ETC, NEM and WAVES, as well as fiat currencies by arrangement, as in the case of AXL.
Even without the $1.1 million injection of funds, the project reached its 500 BTC viability threshold within hours of its launch, as depositors sought to take advantage of the 30 per cent day 1 bonus. By the end of the first 24 hours, an equivalent of almost $1 million had been collected in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“This puts us on a very secure footing going forwards,’ commented Sergienko. ‘We look forward to seeing further retail investment and potentially additional institutional interest in ChronoBank over the coming weeks.”
For more information or to participate in the ICO, visit www.ChronoBank.io.
