Estonia's Funderbeam is building a blockchain-based "stock exchange" for startups
Summary
Headed up by Kaidi Ruusalepp, who was previously CEO of the Nasdaq Tallinn stock exchange, Estonias Funderbeam is on a mission to build what she calls a funding and trading engine for growth companies.Providing tools to research, fund and trade in private companies, the bigger vision is to build something akin to a stock exchange for startups based on blockchain technology. Notable other investors include Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and David Braben, the CEO and Founder of Frontier Developments.Theres too much complexity in the pre-IPO/private market. Companies used to go to exchanges for growth financing, but looking at the startup funding trends, like Uber raising 3.5 billion in just one round, plus the cost structure of getting listed and being listed, it does not make sense anymore, Ruusalepp tells me.Today growth companies look to the stock markets only as a serious option for exits. On top, early-stage and growth funding has grown to unimagined heights, but it is one of the most illiquid assets classes. Or to put it in a fruitier way, she says, imagine if Bloomberg, Angellist and Nasdaq had a baby.Blockchain technology, argues Ruusalepp, provides the transparency needed to help address trust issues inherent with any trading system and that digital technology trumps paper records that still hamper stock exchanges and databases of company ownership.There is a coming shift in trust [that is seeing] customers start trusting technology instead of people and institutions, she says.