Angels are cute beings. Only a few people ever get the opportunity to meet them in their lifetime. Who wouldn’t want to see an Angel if given the rare chance? This weekend was action packed as project hydro in its first official outing in 2019 had the opportunity to meet Angel investors, Blockchain Enthusiasts, and VCs in the Detroit Blockchain Pitchfest that held on February 28th at Next Energy Centre in Detroit.
The aim of the Detroit Pitchfest was to give the opportunity to 12 preselected Blockchain and Fintech projects to sell their ideas (whether at conception, initial, or finishing stage) to investors. After which those deemed to have the most creative, high-quality, and sustainable businesses will split a prize pool consisting of $30,000 worth of digital “tokens” from crypto ventures Worbli, Telos, Parsl, PixEOS, Murmur, and more. Judging during the event was handled by EOS Detroit’s Brian Tutt, Fractal co-founder Anna Taylor, Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick, senior partners from the FinTech Consortium, and seven other judges. The event’s sponsors include Envestnet Yodlee and Worbli.
Project Hydro was ably represented by Mark Anstead (Business Development Manager) who wielded the whole power at his disposal to explain the key components of the project hydro, milestones in the past one year and focus in 2019 starting from Q1.
He sounded so much like someone who knew the kind of people who were in attendance being the crème de la crème and major influencers of known crypto/blockchain projects around the US. Only a well-researched presentation could have commanded such rapt attention of the audience as his did. He seemed to have touched an area that was important in solving the major problems the project founders there were facing in development. His presentation was apt and straight to the point. Click here to see the presentation from 34th to the 42nd minute.
Mark stayed on the Snowflake phase and a clinical work in explaining the function, the problem it will solve, and what stage of development it was in. He emphatically stated that work on snowflake was completed and anybody could build a KYC or any identity management system on it now. He stated that it will be fully released in Q1 which indirectly meant it will be out before the end of March. He added that the problems that crypto companies and other sectors have hitherto faced in being KYC/AML compliant were going to be a thing of the past with Snowflake fully released. It was also interesting to hear that the functionality of the SnowFlake protocol is not limited to crypto or financial companies, but extends to governments, schools and almost any sector you can think of.
You don’t meet angels and leave empty. After such well applauded appearance, it is expected that the money and tech guys would show interest in your project. Although there is no formal announcement of any partnership as a result of the project hydro presentation at the Pitchfest, there are high possibilities that news of any such partnerships will begin to filter into the public any time from now.
Conclusions:
It takes only a confident team and one with so much assurance in the disruption the project will cause in an important area to appear and pitch their ideas before other experts. Such appearance is not only solace to the project followers and investors, but also to all who are expecting the team to deliver their promise. If the project you’ve invested in doesn’t appear in blockchain events organized by them or others, it will be in your best interest to review whether to stay on in it or leave. Every serious team will push for opportunities to get the word about their project out there to be noticed.
