An Inflection Point for Aktionariat
Summary
Aktionariat stands at an inflection point as we are adjusting the overall strategy. Going forward, Aktionariat will focus on providing top-notch technical tools to a blockchain-affine audience. We want to make scalable investor relations a reality for companies that understand the benefits of blockchain technology. Onboarding with Aktionariat and using our services should be possible without human support and without waiting times, with all payments and invoicing happening on chain via our unique multisignature wallet. At the same time, we will continue to provide useful tools for investors who want to manage their security token portfolio and want to connect with issuers. By focusing more on delivering promising technology to users who have an intrinsic interest in blockchain technology, we can spend less time on making our offering appealing to a traditional audience and can deliver new features with a smaller team and at a faster pace.
Background
Tokenization of securities has been a big topic at blockchain conferences for many years. The simple and convincing story goes: there is enormous trading volume with crypto currencies that have no true value and convey no tangible investor rights. Therefore, tokens that equip holders with legally enforceable rights should be even more successful as they are strictly better. Various companies emerged around the concept of tokenizing 'real-world assets' or 'RWAs', a term that I personally avoid as it is too broad to be an asset class.
In Switzerland and also internationally, Aktionariat has one of the best track records of tokenizing shares on a public blockchain. No other company has come closer to delivering on the underlying vision. Having over 50 tokenized companies on public blockchains with tens of thousands of investors is an unparalleled achievement of the Aktionariat team under Nico's lead. However, the current business model would require hundreds if not thousands of issuers to catapult Aktionariat towards the ambitious goal of one day becoming a unicorn. This demand has not materialized despite our strong marketing and sales efforts.
We have consciously avoided becoming a crowd-funding platform or promoting ourselves as such. Our hope was that a market would emerge for the shares of some of the hidden champions of the Swiss economy. Small but robust companies with steady growth that are not ambitious enough for venture capitalists, but that deliver long term value. I would put quitt., the very first company we tokenized into that category. However, many of our clients primarily used our tools to raise funds after other fundraising attempts failed. This is not a solid foundation for delivering value to investors and shareholders.
One could say that we were quite successful at selling a service that lacked a good product-market-fit. If the product-market-fit is not sufficient and crossing the chasm between early adopters to early majority is much tougher than anticipated, one needs to take a step back and return to a more experimental and innovative mode of operation again.
Adjusted Strategy
While the vision of enabling customers to buy shares of companies they love remains unchanged, we will try to climb that mountain on a different path. Instead of appealing to Swiss small and medium businesses first, we would like to shift towards the tokenization of international blockchain-affine companies. The underlying bet is that as crypto advances, the companies that fall into the "blockchain-affine" category will naturally grow as more and more companies internationally start to make use of crypto transactions for various purposes. For example, the aforementioned company quitt might benefit from using stablecoins for automated payment processing and therefore naturally grow towards being more crypto-oriented. In this strategy, we rely less on our ability to make blockchain technology user-friendly and more on the ecosystem itself growing and becoming more accessible. It takes away some of our workload and allows us to focus on new and innovative applications again that are maybe too technical for the average company, but very useful for those who already are exposed to the crypto space in one way or another. Our goal is to increase the automation and reduce the effort of onboarding clients so there are fewer steps and less time spent on personal explanations and discussions.
Product Changes
For issuers and token holders, the most important change will be that we will concentrate on delivering a reliable and scalable infrastructure for all your needs related to security tokens. At the same time, we will make it clearer that Aktionariat is not an investment platform. While we might offer tools such as integrated ENS (Ethereum Name System) registration and support listings on sites like Etherscan and Coinmarketcap, we will refer issuers looking for a fundraising platform to partners such as Oomnium. Going forward, our core products will consist of three symbiotic components, the corporate dashboard for issuers, a portfolio view (app or web) for token holders, and investor relations pages to build a bridge between the two, including old and new possibilities for the trading of security tokens. This is very similar to what we are doing today, but it comes with an increased focus on enabling the users to leverage the possibilities of the underlying technology and decentralized finance, and a reduced focus on accessibility features such as localization or the investor card.
Team
Going forward, co-founder and previous CTO Murat Ögat will take over as the new CEO of Aktionariat. He will be supported by Kostas Zavoudakis who is promoted to COO, with Luzius Meisser being a more actively involved Chairman again. With a technical person in the lead, we set a clear emphasis on the technical side of our offering, with direct sales in more traditional markets becoming less relevant. I wholeheartedly thank Nico and Béla as well as the other leaving team members for their dedication, hard work and for what we have achieved together.
Murat noted at yesterday's strategy offsite: “Although it's always hard to part ways with some of our long-standing colleagues and friends, I sincerely believe in the remaining team's capacity to deliver high quality results even more efficiently. A smaller team with short, direct lines of communication and agility allows us to build on the latest technology quickly and innovatively.I am looking forward to this new period of Aktionariat that, I hope, will propel us to be a world-renowned securities tokenization platform, with a great team and great issuers, investors and partners.”
Aktionariat Token
Holders of Aktionariat share tokens (DAKS) might wonder what these changes mean for them. Previously, token holders might have counted on Aktionariat to be able to adhere to the previous business plan and to onboard hundreds of paying clients within a relatively short time. By realizing that this is not realistic and taking a new route, the value of the company must be reassessed. I believe that Aktionariat can be very valuable in the long run, but in the short run, there will be a lot of uncertainty and a substantially lower valuation.
The current situation is a good test case for our long anticipated support for secondary transactions. Instead of enabling the repurchase of shares through the Brokerbot again, we plan to enable the newly developed widgets for secondary transactions by the end of the month. This will allow token holders to publicly offer their shares for sale. It is a good mechanism to allow the "weak hands" to sell without diminishing corporate cash reserves. Once the less optimistic token holders have sold, we should be on a solid foundation for slowly increasing token prices again.
Investor Call
We would like to invite our shareholders to an investor call held on Friday 26th of July at 16:30 to present you with the new business plan and discuss how we will enable secondary transactions for our shares. An email with the link to the call will be distributed at a later point in time to all registered DAKS token holders.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Luzius Meisser, Chairman
