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Dear community,
This semester, despite a particularly stagnant VC market, barely above 2020 levels, and high debt contraction rates, investors' interest in impact projects persists.
Despite challenging conditions, impact companies continue to see relative progress in funding, thus reinforcing our position as a key player between financing issues and ecological transition.
The decrease in the number of deals and the current orientation of investors towards larger, less risky financing increases the challenges for early-stage companies.
This opens significant opportunities for alternative financiers such as erable°, strategically positioned to support these projects and play a central role in ecological transition.
We are thrilled to share our progress and outlook in this semi-annual newsletter. Enjoy your reading!
In 2023, creating a disruptive innovation: blockchain has the capabilities to solve one of the major problems of impact investing
Projects: Successful fundraisings and project traction on our model
Market need validation
One of the great successes was to confirm the value proposition and scale up the commercialization of our offer for an impact project.
For these, there are two major advantages compared to other financing solutions:
- Non-dilutive financing and without burdening their treasury plan thanks to Revenue-Based finance (revenue sharing)
- Engaging a community around their project, which is a real issue for projects whose success relies on citizens' behavior changes
- Meeting a financing need (stock, working capital requirements) often poorly addressed by traditional tools
Revolte and Pyxo have already expressed their intention to launch new fundraisings.
For erable°, it's market proof that this type of project is ready to establish itself in the long term with us.
From a new entrants' perspective, we are preparing to launch 3 new fundraisings and are confident (70% probability) about signing 5 other projects.
Our corporate clients: A model adaptable to all types of structures
Beyond the fundraisings planned on our platform, we are also working on enriching the ecosystem by offering our platform under a white label to larger accounts or projects in specific verticals wishing to have their own platform space.
The most notable launch is that of Keenest with a successful first fundraising in less than two weeks for OpenClimat!
The goal for Keenest is simple: to offer another mode of investment in greentech capital
We have also completed the first phases of two ambitious projects:
- Our first 'large account' use case with European road transport leader DB Schenker preparing for its transition to electric
- Preparing a client project to address new geographic areas - The African Fund, aiming to launch the first DAO dedicated to financing projects across the continent
For early 2024, the theme of transport with DB and others will be in the spotlight. Another major account, in the luxury universe, is also shaping up...stay tuned!
The creation of innovative tech and specific platforms to serve our use cases
erable.com, our institutional website
From the product department at erable°, first, as you may have seen, we launched erable.com, our completely redesigned institutional website.
This bilingual space is the central point to discover our financing model, funded projects, team news, and resources to become an expert in impact investing through blockchain.
Creating tech for other clients
In parallel, our technical team succeeded in designing an innovative architecture allowing us to replicate our platform under a white label. A notable example is Keenest, for whom we created an investment platform in climate techs in less than three months. This scalable, customizable solution offers premium service to our clients.
Keenest was also able to carry out its first fundraising, for Open Climat, the first open-access platform centralizing and validating companies' environmental declarations.
The app.erable.com platform, to host projects
Finally, on our main platform app.erable.com, we have significantly accelerated the release of new financial product collections, automating the smart contract process and asset issuance. Moreover, we launched the multilingual version (FR/EN). Finally, we enhanced security by integrating KYC into the investment process, customizable activation.
This quarter has been exceptional, marked by significant advancements that fuel our eagerness to continue this positive dynamic into the next quarter.
Leveraging the potential of decentralized finance (DeFi)
We conclude this rich year 2023 by focusing on a new product that we know is promising for the projects we support, and the values we uphold. It is a one-click solution empowering investors to fund and support Real-World Asset (RWA) projects, all while reaping the benefits of traditional DeFi Yield protocols.
So far, we have deployed our first landing page and shared an initial series of documents. The product development will be launched shortly, hoping for the launch of the first MVP by Q1 2024.
Community: Recognition from Our Peers in the Impact and Blockchain Worlds
A Team Positioned at the Forefront of Our Industry
From a notoriety standpoint, it is crucial for us to be positioned both in the world of impact and blockchain.
The stakes are as follows: offer a new, more transparent and practical form of investment, based in particular on blockchain. On the blockchain ecosystems side, positioning ourselves as a leading player in the growing narratives of ReFi and RWA is crucial.
Our founding team is regularly invited to speak at major events in each ecosystem:
- He notably participated in a panel on the utility of blockchains for impact investment at the Luxembourg Blockchain Week.
- He contributed to the Reg3 conference, a one-day industry event to discuss the future of cryptocurrency regulation.
- He represented erable° in the “ReFi” category at the finals of the European Blockchain Convention.
Finally, Anaïs Bouchet, our Head of Product and guarantor of impact topics, has intervened:
- at a panel at BIG, organized by BPI France
- at Pollutec, the international reference event for environmental solutions for industry, cities, and territories.
Her journey was also followed by the director of the documentary “l’alternative,” broadcasted on France 3.
Thanks to these interventions, we have been able to truly assert our value proposition and simply highlight the capabilities of blockchain in the service of impact investment.
This work has enabled erable° to become a recognised player in the ReFi ecosystem - as demonstrated by the fact that we have just been nominated by INATBA as one of the "Most Exciting Projects of the Year".
Validation of Interest in Our On-Chain Impact Savings Product
These past few weeks have been conducive to meeting 🤝 We have multiplied interviews with potential investors and actors in the web3 ecosystem. The idea was to test their interest in the product we are developing. These initial feedbacks have allowed us to prioritize certain developments.
We continue to meet with you at the end of this year. If you want to participate in these interviews, sign up on our landing page.
2024: After acceleration, scaling up
Projects: Offering More Impact Themes and Expanding Our Offer
Acceleration of the Number of Fundraisings
Starting in January, the goal is to launch a new fundraising event each month.
This includes new fundraisings with already funded projects, or the entry of new companies.
The objective is to launch new verticals or to enrich some, like soft mobility, which our model particularly suits well.
Opening to Other Impact Verticals
We have a full request calendar until mid-year - the challenge is to be able to fund all these ambitious projects.
We are currently preparing to launch a project in eco-design of packaging, with a major player in automobile electrification.
In our project pipeline, we also have projects in energy, responsible agriculture, and a project related to a certain sports event hosted in Paris... 👀
Commercialization of Tech to Other Major Accounts
We were talking to you about our tech and the perspectives of selling it under a white label to other major accounts.
We are in discussions with other major accounts, for whom a white label commercialization of our tech would be particularly suitable.
The goal? To engage their communities around their environmental and social transition.
Product: Towards Obtaining Approvals and Tech Evolutions
Prioritizing Certain Approvals and Contract Evolution
To date, the investor contracts associated with our fundraising are contractual: investors hold NFTs on tangible assets.
This contract model will evolve, initially, towards a future revenue contract model. We will present the evolutions related to this type of model in a dedicated AMA.
We are prioritizing obtaining the PSFP license - a crowdfunding service provider, also known as ECSP in English: European Crowdfunding Service Provider- which has the advantage of being a European license, and will allow us to diversify the type of offers on-app (such as bonds). We will be one of the first entities in the web3 universe to undertake this step.
We prioritized this need over the PSAN license, still expected to evolve with MiCA, and on which we can rely on experienced partners to support us.
Development of the Savings Product
The idea is to offer investors (web3 or not) quick access to an investment solution, allowing users to be exposed to both classic products of the DeFi world and impact projects based on real assets.
The next few weeks will mark the development of this new product. We aim to:
- Facilitate individuals' investment in crypto assets
- Use existing and efficient DeFi protocols
- Provide continuous monitoring of the investment and the financed assets
- Allocate rewards to investors based on a fixed time period
- Establish a governance process for integrating partners and investment opportunities
For app.erable and erable.com, Significant Technical Projects
For the first quarter of 2024, we have planned an ambitious roadmap to further strengthen our position and improve the overall experience of investors on erable°.
First, we will undertake a vast SEO project to optimize our online visibility and attract a wider audience to our impact investment opportunities.
In parallel, a thorough review of the UX and UI will be undertaken, with a redesign of the investment sequence.
The goal is to offer a more intuitive user experience and guide our investors more transparently throughout the process.
The erable° Discord is the community's nerve centre, and it's also where we invite you to give us all your feedback!
We will also work on improvements to the financial product indexing system, aiming to reduce loading times and ensure smoother navigation on our platform.
Finally, we plan to implement investment tracking dashboards, offering clear visibility by project and by user. These developments aim to consolidate our commitment to continuous innovation and ensure an optimal experience for our investors.
Community: Creating Networks of Experts and Increasing Notoriety
Bringing Together Business Angels and Entrepreneurs
erable° will launch its business angel club to facilitate fundraising and de-risk - in a way - the investment of small holders by adding a layer of validation and credibility.
More than capital, they also bring their expertise and network, thus increasing the chances of success of the financed projects and their expertise in the selection of these projects.
If you are interested, you can contact us directly at club@erable.com
Impact or Blockchain Investors, the Goal is Now to Gain Notoriety
Validating the Interest of Impact Investors
To validate our hypothesis and see if these investors would be interested in joining the erable° community, the entire team spent time directly contacting people who might be interested.
To do this, we cold-contacted over 2000 people.15% of these contacts led to exchanges and an interest in our investment products platform.
Focus on content creation
To go to scale, we're going to massify our content strategy across our various networks.
- Focus our efforts on people who have already shown an interest in our themes - by offering educational content on impact investing and the potential of blockchain for impact investing.We will offer various formats (articles, threads, webinars) aimed at educating people about impact finance and blockchain.
- Helping our community to make the most of their investment experienceThrough increasingly detailed articles and presentations on our offerings, we will provide a more complete investment experience.
Launch of Public Communication for the Protocol
As of now, we have mainly conducted interviews with potential future users.
Although the idea was to assess the product's relevance, this first contact will obviously have consequences on the future use of our product.
To complement these initial exchanges, we have deployed our landing page, accompanied by a waiting list that will provide early access to our product. In the coming weeks, we will endeavor to set up our communication campaign to reach beyond our networks and existing community.
A Token Relaunch Estimated for June 2024
Bridge
We plan a gradual launch of our token on Polygon starting from the Bitcoin halving.
The idea will be to propose to current $CLAP holders to bridge from Cardano to Polygon, while setting up rewards for the most engaged and loyal users.
We will rely on our ecosystem to ensure, in the wake of the bridge, a listing on the main DeX and CeX (market-making strategy).
This bridge, as mentioned earlier, must not be improvised. The token itself must be based on a series of well-defined products and utilities. In this sense, we had proposed a list of KPIs to achieve (amounts raised, user growth...), which will testify to the good health of the ecosystem, before launching this process of bridging.
Once tokenomics has been validated, a communication phase will be launched in February, culminating in the estimated bridge launch in June 2024!All of this will be enhanced by a community vote in Q1 2024 on the choice of KPIs.
Utilities & Mechanisms
We will offer a staking mechanism that will provide access to a series of benefits
- A share of the revenues generated by the erable° ecosystem
- Governance
- Access to exclusive benefits & deals
Tokenomics
A tokenomics will be shared at the beginning of Q1 2024 outlining the main elements mentioned above.
Conclusion
Our objective is clear: to become a key player in investment for the transition and to make our model a benchmark for investors and projects.
At the start of 2026, we plan to finance more than 5 verticals, raising an average of around €500,000.
The needs are immense, but the financing capacity is there.
The challenge for us is to offer investors an increasingly high-quality experience.
2024 should enable us to make significant progress with :
- Increasing impact through committed projects
- Diversification of the products on offer to suit everyone's tastes. The launch of the savings account will be a first step.
- A community-based approach, which goes beyond the issue of returns to add a new dimension to the role of the investor: that of becoming an active stakeholder in the success of the transition to OpenClimat!
