The Russian initial coin offering (ICO) frenzy continued in 2017. Last year saw more than 130 ICOs and pre-ICOs conducted by companies with Russian roots, some 10% of the global numbers, according to data collected by ICObench and East-West Digital News (EWDN), with fundraising successes announced every week in a variety of fields, reports EWDN. 

In the latest development, BioCoin, which touts itself as “the first eco-cryptocurrency and international Blockchain-based loyalty platform,” announced earlier this week that it raised the equivalent of $16mn through its ICO, overreaching its initial target of $15mn.

The token sale, which ended on February 18, was held in partnership with Voskhod, which in September last year became the first authorised cryptocurrency platform in Russia.

BioCoin was launched a mere six months ago by LavkaLavka, a network of small and mid-sized farms across Russia that says it offers fresh, natural, seasonal food. Under the slogan “Support the green economy” the BioCoin project consists of developing an “ecosystem of local communities” and “socially responsible businesses” across the world. Working together, these actors will contribute to accelerate “the adoption of organic agriculture, sustainable development and responsible consumption at the global scale,” reads Biocoin’s one-pager.

The initiative targets craftsmen, farmers, e-commerce sites, eco-entrepreneurs, associations, shops, restaurants, manufacturers and producers, among others.

The other Russian ICO successes announced recently include:

Faceter, a blockchain project that aims to make video surveillance systems affordable to everyone. This startup claims to have raised the equivalent of more than $10mn in the first 20 seconds of its pre-ICO and reached $16mn as of February 22.

Play2live, an eSports platform that plans to deploy blockchain-based decentralised P2P networks to increase Internet speed and create “a new eSports economy”. Its founder Alexey Budyrko, a Belarusian serial entrepreneur, says his company attracted the equivalent of $16mn during the 12 days of its pre-ICO, which ended on February 6.

Simdaq, a community trading platform, claims to have raised the equivalent of $5mn in just a day in late January, reaching its hard cap target. The project aims to “democratise crypto trading” by providing a set of tools for trading strategies, including training on historical data, a framework to develop trading robots, and a space for sharing experience with others.

VRT World, a startup that aims to gather virtual reality content developers, consumers and related businesses on a global platform, announced a more modest record. Its token pre-sale brought in “just” $721,000 in late December and early January — but the company aims to raise as much as $16mn in the public phase of its ICO in March.

International traction

These and other companies with Russian roots usually manage to attract investors far beyond Russia. In the case of Play2live, “30% of the money came from China, about 20% from Vietnam, 15% came from South Korea, 8% came from the US,” Budyrko said, “while just about 10% came from Russia.”

As for VRT World’s investors, they came from no less than 21 countries, the company’s CEO Konstantin Negachev confirmed in an exchange with EWDN.

AB-Chain, whose ad network platform — launched just two months ago — uses cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, had its latest pre-sale investor come from China.

Dbrain, a Russian-Belarusian blockchain startup that offers to “collectively build full-stack AI apps,” secured a $2.5mn pre-ICO seed round at the beginning of the year. The funding came from funds based in Moscow, New York, Singapore and Syndney, as well as from Russian business angels Eduard Gurinovich (CarPrice, CarMoney and mytime ) and Leo Batalov (DLA Piper), Dbrain CMO Ivan Gorshunov told EWDN.