2019 may have been the final year of a decade but it became the most defining year for our project so far.

This year started with a major challenge. We returned from the Christmas holidays to find that Hero Tokens had been removed from both Liquid and HitBTC without prior warning. We knew that we needed to get re-listed and we took this situation as a way to learn, improve and move forward in the right direction. We made a decision to focus our attention on HitBTC due to the popularity of the exchange and we worked very hard with their team and formed a solid relationship to get ourselves back onto their exchange. This relationship would be instrumental for an event that took place later in the year.

As the beginning of 2019 continued, we realised that we needed to focus on our technology and speed up growth of the business. We have an ethos that we believe will change the lives of many people within the world and we have a community that echoes this passion. We decided to change direction and grow the business at a faster pace. We brought in a new CTO with Francesco, to use his experience and knowledge to bring our vision to life. Improvements were made, more desks were filled and Raise was born.

The announcement of Raise saw our first published Road Map. This put a lot of pressure on our developers but we listened to the voices of those most attracted to our business. We released our very technical 'Purple Paper' in the summer and our developers continued to grow personally and professionally as they took on the challenge of having the BETA platform ready by August. This was far ahead of our initially anticipated expectation.

We did it!

On August 12th, our first version of Raise had arrived. A new name, a new logo, a new website and a new marketing strategy. Early access was exclusive and we launched a referral campaign for people who registered!

We could not slow down...

Our Roadmap promised everyone that the marketplace would be live by September 30th. The hard work continued as we committed to a deadline we needed to hit. Our headcount grew even further and collaborations increased. Every single employee was involved in a lot of the decisions the team made together.

One thing that we were really keen on getting fixed before launch was our presence on CoinMarketCap. This was going to be very difficult because their policy implied that we needed to be listed on 2 exchanges. After a lot of conversations and data-filling, we managed to accomplish it! Since then, we have been on the top 10 gainers list twice and people are continuing to be attracted to our project.

This time of the year was incredibly busy as we went through a full 360 re-brand, created new social channels and successfully started getting our publishings through external media sources.

The time then arrived, our marketplace was live.

Our official product launch was a success. The marketplace was live and our marketing efforts saw solid consistent growth with regards to registered users, sign ups and people making deposits. We decided to create a new style with regards to our content marketing and we implemented informative blog posts that would suit the regular user of Raise.

These blog posts have lifted off on both Hackernoon and Publish0x. It has brought a new type of user to Raise. People who are genuinely interested in helping businesses grow with their spare change.

Since then, we have been successful in predicting specific issues that could affect our business. Raise was fully prepared with the launch of multi-collateral DAI, a problem that other companies have struggled with since it was released in November.

Raise is always thinking about innovation and the future.

The year has ended with an important milestone for us. We migrated Hero Tokens to Raise Tokens with the help of that relationship built with HitBTC earlier in the year and we are now in a position where our ideas can truly come to life. 2020 will be an exciting year, we have plans to integrate 3rd party applications, the option to purchase Raise Tokens directly from our website and a huge push for growth and traction. The holidays are coming and we return in the new year, safe in the knowledge that we have a solid plan for attracting lenders and borrowers.

We are excited for what next year brings and from the team at Raise, we wish you Happy Holidays and a healthy and lucky New Year.