milestoneBased (mB) is a revolutionary platform for startups to raise venture capital and investors to invest in projects in a new way. It helps in raising capital with the power of blockchain DAO and smart contracts. It aims to provide greater confidence from automated startup cooperation, capital efficiency, transparency, security, data-driven insights, and a faster path to monetization of deployed funds. 

As a result, it offers a great deal of motivation and milestone focus for startups to achieve their objectives laid out in their roadmap. With the help of mB’s milestone process, startups can raise venture capital in a flexible, efficient, secure, and standardized way that is also beneficial to the investors. 

The Team Behind the Project

milestoneBased is backed by an experienced team of professionals who have had prior experience with building companies in the past. With the help of a diversified group, they were able to create a user-friendly, informative platform with various features for both the startups and the investors. The main leaders of the team include:

Ian Arden, Leadership

Serial entrepreneur, CEO, Advisor, Developer. Ian has launched and built many companies including: Applicature, a venture builder for EVM based projects; Supercolony, a key venture builder for the Polkadot ecosystem; Mempool Ventures, a crypto investment advisory firm; and Vidma, a security auditing company. He is also an advisor to several blockchain companies.

Mykola Kovach, Design

Lead Designer, UX/UI, Product Designer, Founder. Mykola has a background setting the bar for great design with companies like Applicature, Zokyo, Bridge Mutual and Letzgro.

Vasyl Yuhas, Dev Lead

Senior Developer, Dev Lead. Vasyl brings a comprehensive background build tech platforms from companies such as Applicature, SoftServe, Letzgro.

Problem They are Solving

Raising venture capital has always been challenging for startups, especially in the crypto community. Various factors and conditions must be met before an investor is willing to invest in a project. Hence, milestoneBased aims to resolve core problems from the early stage itself. Moreover, they aim to help create a relationship between the startups and investors to benefit both. Some of these problems include the following:

Capital Inefficiency 

The first problem with raising venture capital is that it only happens after some time. Even if the investors choose to invest in a project, it takes time for the funds to be accessible by the startup. There is also the problem of overfunding and underfunding when it comes to venture capital. These strifes can become the very basis of the success or failure of a startup. 

Process Inefficiency

When starting in a globally distributed market, startups often need help finding the right investors at the right time. Finalizing a deal with an investor can take weeks or even months. Moreover, investors must spend a significant amount of time researching the project and the company’s folio to agree to invest in the project. As a result, it can cause a lot of delays for the startups to be able to launch at the right time. 

Ineffective Collaboration

The most common problem between startups and investors is their inability to collaborate properly. Startups may need to follow the best practices regarding investor and business management that can cause delays in achieving their milestone objectives. Due to this hectic schedule during the early stages, they often miss out on properly conveying their results to the investors, which can cause mistrust. It can also cause delays in securing multiple investors if they are not experienced in handling different pitch decks for other investors.

Solutions They are Offering

To combat the problems mentioned above, milestoneBased has a concrete process of offering benefits to investors and startups. They have devised various solutions to increase confidence between the two parties. As a result, they provide the following solutions: 

Escrow Protection

milestoneBased helps startups to raise funds with the help of smart contracts and blockchain DAO. This is facilitated through Escrow as a way to raise funds effectively and smartly. Hence, both the investors and the startups can trust the funding process from the protection offered by Escrow.

Digital-signature Voting Platform

The new system introduced by milestoneBased for digital signature voting helps the investors to approve or decline a project milestone request. This allows the investors to save time and make way for opportunities in later stages if a startup can perform successfully in its early stages. 

Investor Memos & Advanced Data

To help startups achieve their milestone goals, milestoneBased provides knowledge and “hacks” on roadmap management and future growth. As a result, they can achieve their goals effectively and efficiently. This is done with the help of advanced data and AI for data-driven decision-making.

Built-in Functions 

The milestoneBased platform has various built-in functions to enforce collaboration between investors and startups. For startups, it helps them to provide easy and secure access to funds as and when needed to achieve their milestone objectives. It also helps them by providing the necessary data and knowledge to make intelligent business decisions to ensure the success of their projects. As a result, it helps to ensure the sustainability of the project. 

For the investors, it helps them to manage their entire portfolio in a single location effectively. The platform also allows them to publicize their portfolio to help build a public image in the future. Moreover, it helps to reduce financial risk for the investors with the help of their milestone-based principles. If a startup fails to realize the early milestone objectives set by them, the investors can withdraw funds invested in later stages to prevent loss. Hence, it helps to create confidence in the projects launched on the platform while limiting cash flow risks.

Funding Model

With the help of dividing funds based on milestones, the mB platform funding model offers a streamlined way of raising funds. As a result, it ensures that the startups are driven to succeed and weed out potential bad projects in the future. Moreover, it offers capital efficiency to investors and prevents them from investing a large amount of money all at once. 

How the Solution Works

The milestoneBased platform works on a set protocol determined by them for the benefit of investors and startups. To create a successful two-way collaboration, it works under the following basic functions:

• Startups divide their roadmaps into milestones to be reviewed and approved by investors;
• Investors choose a startup to allocate funds to which are then released either at the start of the milestone or as milestones are completed;
• Stakeholders submit proposals relating to development via the milestoneBased DAO;
• Stakeholders vote on proposals, including on whether a milestone has finished or needs to begin, and whether allocated funds should be unlocked;
• If a milestone vote passes, the startup receives access to the funding allocated to it as per its withdrawal strategy.

Roadmap

milestoneBased platform has come a long way since its inception between 2018-2020. Starting from a bold idea, it has successfully achieved various objectives of its milestones. It continues to develop further to help make the platform more beneficial for startups and investors. Their current roadmap journey has been laid out below:

Tokenomics

The milestoneBased platform is governed by the MILE token. It is the core token for accessing various features and investing in startups. It also helps to provide voting rights, governance, community rewards, and liquidity mining. The MILE token increases the protocol’s utility by rewarding participants and opening up new funding pathways for startups through DeFi models such as staking rewards and yield farming.

Compared to other venture capital firms, they have launched the tokens in a new way called Power Launch without private or presale rounds. This enables the tokens to be equally available to everyone genuinely interested in the success of the milestoneBased platform. This process helps to prolong the stability of the token and to benefit the token holders in the long run.

Token Utility

The MILE token has numerous utilities on the milestoneBased platform. It allows token holders to enjoy various benefits and access various features. These benefits can be enjoyed by both the startups and the investors. Some of the essential utilities include the following:

Governance

People holding MILE tokens have the right to participate in the platform’s governance. This is different from voting rights on a particular startup. Instead, it offers the token holders a say in the milestoneBased platform as a whole. This includes voting on development features, fee structure changes, and other important decisions for the platform. 

Fees Collection

The milestoneBased platform charges a fee for project deployments and funds withdrawal. These fees are payable in MILE tokens or other tokens primarily used in the crypto ecosystem. The general fee structure is as follows: 

• Fee if paid in MILE, 100% upfront: 0.6%
• Fee if paid in MILE, half up front and the remainder on milestone withdrawals: 0.4%
• Fee if paid in other tokens: 0.5% upfront, 0.5% on each withdrawal.

The fees depend on how the startups decide to pay them.

Project Funding

To maintain stability, it is required for a startup to raise a percentage of its venture capital using the MILE token. For instance, if a startup aims to raise $1 million, it has to raise at least 10% of the money from investors using MILE. This helps to ensure a healthy token economy and creates organic demand for the token.

Yield Farming and Rewards

Startups and investors are encouraged to keep a portion of their capital on the milestoneBased platform until the need to withdraw arises. Meanwhile, it offers rewards in the form of MILE tokens with the help of staking and yield farming. As a result, it helps startups to boost their funds without additional fundraising. Users also earn rewards for their contributions to the mB ecosystem. This can be earned by publishing useful memos, creating roadmap templates, or supporting the milestoneBased community in other ways.

Membership Tiers

The total number of MILE tokens held by a user conveniently categorizes them into different membership tiers. Different tiers of membership have access to other features within the platform. Early investors who hold MILE tokens have additional benefits as well.

Buybacks

In case of a buyback, up to 50% of the ecosystem revenue will be used for regular token buybacks. This helps to create a positive price action and additional benefits to all MILE token holders.

Competitors Vs. Other Venture Capital Firms

Unlike its competitors, milestoneBased offers a unique service for startups and investors. It not only helps the startups raise capital, but it also helps the investors keep track of their investments on par with the milestones set by the projects. Moreover, it helps the investors from losing money by dividing the startup’s funding requirements broken down into various milestones. As a result, it helps the startup from facing problems from insufficient funding or overfunding. If a startup makes excellent progress in its early stages, then more investors can have confidence in the project and choose to invest in its future potential.