SDG Impact-Investment Token

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

The CONU security token provides easy & secure access for entrepreneurs to fundraise their impactful projects + for purpose-driven private & institutional investors to invest in these enterprises

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Expert-Team of experienced and purpose-driven entrepreneurs and blockchain- and DAO specialists. The team has been part of Catalyst since Fund 3 and part of several funded projects.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

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A: Abstract & Vision

CONU is a revolutionary decentralized investment & fundraising ecosystem for impact-driven enterprises and projects. With the CONU launchpad we provide easy and secure access for entrepreneurs to fundraise their projects and for private & institutional investors to support impact-driven projects. The heart of this project is our security token called CONU that will power our ecosystem.

This proposal is a first step to build this purpose-driven decentralized ecosystem for investments that address social and environmental deficits and support a healthy and sustainable economy.

Read our whitepaper for more background information: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTBu0PuGBi6REipc92udKfkBbcak7Pwy28lftc14t1hrtJ4hJ0c6ZaeMqIlRBT8C8-wjxf_RxZ-qtQn/pub

Definitions (for understanding the proposal):

• Security Token:

In the blockchain technology space, a Security Token is referred to as an "Investment Token" or "Equity Token" that is tied to a security offering/asset. Rather than granting an investor a tangible benefit such as access to an ecosystem, a Security Token represents a stake in the company issuing the token. Investors who purchase such tokens hope to profit from the investment. At the same time, they offer investors more protection against fraud, as Security Tokens are subject to regulatory requirements on the part of governments.

• Utility Token:

Utility tokens, on the other hand, serve a specific purpose, e.g. to generate interest in a product or to facilitate users' access to applications in blockchain ecosystems. Unlike security tokens, investors are not offered an actual share in the monetary ownership of a company when purchasing utility tokens. Therefore, Utility Tokens are not considered an investment opportunity in the original meaning.

• STO: Security Token Offering

• Impact-driven: To be impact-driven is to be primarily reactive and externally focused - seeing something missing or wrong in the world and taking massive action to fix it

• Purpose-driven: Purpose-driven individuals prioritizes their purpose and personal values over anything else when making decisions or taking actions.

(We love both definitions, so we use both: impact-driven enterprises and purpose-driven entrepreneurs)

B: Extended Problem Statement

Investment activity is mainly focused on capital growth. However, these profits often come at the expense of people and the environment. Moreover, social problems are often the result of an unequal distribution of wealth and participation. Therefore, we believe it is misleading to focus solely on financial gains when making investment decisions. Our investment decisions should be guided by a broader set of values, such as preventing, mitigating and reversing global ecosystem degradation, economic sustainability and social value.

However, companies that nowadays create great added value for the environment and society generally generate less pure capital gain. Therefore, it is still challenging for impact-driven enterprises to raise sufficient capital.  

More and more private and institutional investors are integrating their personal values into investment decisions. But at the same time, access to investment opportunities in impact-driven enterprises is limited. 

C: Background & Context

With CONU we combine three pillars: impact Investment & blockchain technology & community engagement

1. Introduce 'Impact Investing':

A growing segment of the population, including entrepreneurs and investors, are increasingly incorporating their personal values into all aspects of their lives - including their investment decisions. These values include environmental and social goals, support human rights and fair labor practices, and promote sustainable consumption and community engagement. More and more capital is being invested directly in socially responsible companies and sustainable projects. The financial goals of these investments are combined with non-financial goals. These investments are called socially responsible investments or impact investments. We define impact investments as investments that focus on real change in terms of solving social challenges and/or mitigating ecological damage, in addition to financial returns. Still, the impact investment sector is underdeveloped and not accessible to everyone. According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review 2018, $5-6 trillion is needed annually to achieve the UN SDGs by 2030.

2. Blockchain & Security Tokens

With the ICO market slowly ebbing away, security token offerings (“STOs”) surfaced as a reaction to the lack of oversight of ICOs, bringing the issuance of digital tokens using blockchain or distributed ledger technology (“DLT”) within the regulatory ambit. Security tokens are typically the digital representations of the ownership of securities, including assets, equity and debt security. STOs are increasingly being seen as an alternative to traditional and mainstream debt and equity fundraisings via the issuance of bonds and shares. With STOs structured to sit within the securities law framework, there is a wider availability of finance and greater certainty for both issuers/fundraisers and investors, which in turn supports an enhanced liquidity of assets. Asset owners and token issuers can then utilize the divisibility of STOs to raise funds from various parties. The digitalization and fractionalization of assets also reduces the entrance capital in respect of the minimum investment threshold for investors, allowing smaller investors to invest in expensive investments which would otherwise be a threshold too high for participation. Via the purchase of tokens which represent a small portion of assets, the investment risks and costs borne by investors could also be reduced and thereby encouraging the participation of more retail investors.

3. Decentralization & Community

There are a number of different types of decentralization in financial services. These vary in the degree to which they affect different segments of financial services, but generally take three broad forms:

• Decentralization of decision-making: This involves a move away from a single trusted financial intermediary or infrastructure towards systems in which a broad set of users is able to make decisions about whether and how to undertake financial transactions.

• Decentralization of risk-taking: This involves the shift away from the retention of risk (e.g. credit and liquidity risk) on the balance sheets of individual traditional financial intermediaries towards more direct matching of individual users and providers of financial services.

• Decentralization of record-keeping: This involves a move away from centrally held data and records, towards systems in which the ability to store and access data is extended across broader consortia of users. Verification of such data and records may also be more distributed, for example via consensus mechanisms.

D: Introducing the CONU ecosystem

With CONU, we offer purpose-driven entrepreneurs an easy and secure access to fund their projects and private and for purpose-driven institutional investors to support impactful enterprises and projects. CONU's vision is to create an investment ecosystem that puts people (society and communities) and the environment at the center, rather than just capital itself. 

What is new and special about CONU-Token and what distinguishes it from other projects?

1. The CONU-token is a security token that is backed by real investments (the token is tied to real assets). Each token owner thus holds shares in the total value of the CONU Treasury (which is composed of assets on the Treasury's balance sheet). A security token offering is a good way to fundraise efficiently and make the token liquid.

2. Since the token has a real deposited value, it is much less affected by price fluctuations and can still benefit from a price increase when demand rises.

3. Through our purpose-driven investment approach, we enable the financing of business models that are not only exclusively profit-driven, but also make a significant contribution to the environment and society. In this way, we incentivize less profit maximization and more maximization of the total value created, which consists of much more than just financial aspects.

In summary, CONU is a stable value token that enables the growth of sustainable business models and allows investors and the community to participate in projects and create a good moral conscience.

E: Who are the stakeholders in the ecosystem?

Stakeholders or actors in an investment system:

1. Asset (token) owners who actual own capital (= CONU-token holder)
2. Asset manager who deploy capital (= CONU treasury)
3. Demand-side actors who receive and utilize the capital (= impact-driven enterprises)
4. Service provider who help make the market work (= DEX on Cardano)

Our framework and token model envisions the following 3 key players:

Treasury (CONU), community and investors, and impact-driven enterprises.

1. CONU Treasury:

The treasury is responsible for ensuring that the CONU system is secure, stable and runs smoothly. It manages the tokens and ensures liquidity for the tokens. It issues new tokens in order to collect money in return, which it then invests in projects chosen by the community. 

2. Investors & Community:

The community and investors bring liquidity into the system by purchasing CONU tokens, which funds real projects. The purchase of the tokens can be done directly through the Treasury through a token sale. Furthermore, anyone can resell the purchased tokens to other investors and community members through a marketplace. The tokens held can be used to choose which projects and companies the treasury should invest in.

3. Purpose-driven enterprises:

Companies, initiatives and projects that meet the ‘CONU impact standards’ can apply for funding through our launchpad. In return, the treasury contains either shares in the company or in the revenue.

How does the ecosystem work?

1. The treasury issues tokens (in different batches)
2. Entrepreneurs, startups and initiative can apply through the launchpad for funds. In return for financing, these projects offer either company shares, percentage of cash flow, sales or profit (or a combination of these).
3. These projects will be assessed for feasibility (due diligence), sustainability and impact (purpose-driven), similar to the process in Catalyst. Initially, the due diligence will be done by the CONU team and selected partners. In the long term, this will be a community responsibility. For due diligence, compliance and reporting we plan a reputation system, which will finally link the security token approach with full decentralization (not part of this proposal).
4. CONU token holders will then select the projects that will receive funding. The CONU team will carry out the implementation (compliance).
5. Projects will receive funding, report to CONU and the community in regular cycles, and pay their consideration back to the treasury.
6. The profits & revenues that flow back to the treasury through the purpose-driven enterprises are distributed as follows (the key may still change depending on the circumstances):

• 50% goes to the Treasury's liquidity reserve to stabilize the token value or to invest in projects (chosen by the community).
• 25% are available to the treasury for the administration and execution of its tasks.
• 25% are invested in non-profit organizations chosen by the community.

F: Tokenomics of CONU

The treasury has the task to issue new tokens at the respective market price and can buy back tokens (for the purpose of price stability) via its own liquidity pool (fed by profits from the impact-driven enterprises). 

This has two big advantages for the stability of the token price:

1) A market cap below the balance sheet does not reduce the real value of the balance sheet, because a demand-driven price reduction of the token does not change the underlying value of the tokens (unless new tokens are issued at a lower price). 

Calculation example after the 1st coin offering (issuing 10M tokens at a market price of 1$);

• Value of the balance sheet: 10M$ 
• Market cap (as long as the price stays at 1$): 10M$ 
• Scenario 1: The price drops to 50 cents. Market cap = 5M$, but the balance sheet is still 10M$. 
• Scenario 2: The price rises to 2$. Market Cap = 20M$, but the balance sheet is still 10M$.

2) An increase of the market price of the token (e.g. due to increasing demand) can lead to an increase in the real underlying value of all tokens by issuing new tokens at the higher market price (NOTE: It is important to understand the difference between the value and the price of an asset!)

Calculation example:

• 1st coin offering: 10M tokens at a market price of 1$ result in a total balance sheet of 10M$ = underlying value per token = 1$
• 2nd coin offering: 10M tokens at a market price of 3$ result in a total balance sheet of 40M$ (10m$+30M$) = underlying value per token = 2$
• 3rd coin offering: 10M tokens at a market price of 5$ result in a total balance sheet of 90M$ (10m$+30M$+50M$) = underlying value per token = 3$

For these reasons, we expect much lower volatility than other crypto tokens, as the CONU token has a real underlying asset, i.e. the risk of a bubble forming is much lower.  

Therefore, the total supply of CONU tokens depends on the number of tokens issued and is therefore variable. The Treasury's principles, rules and measures for handling tokens are communicated transparently. The final formulation of the token policy is part of the proposal.

G: Scope of the proposal:

The key objective of this proposal the proof-of-concept of CONU by

• initiating the first private token sale
• funding the first impact-driven projects

This will include the following tasks and deliverables:

1. Extension of our whitepaper: the reason to further elaborate the whitepaper is that a meaningful and detailed whitepaper will help us to attract buyers of our token and to fund further steps of the project through different sources. This way we will become more independent from Catalyst (even if we want to keep proposals open for open-source parts of the project and our planned reputation system in the next rounds).

2. Security Token Offering: The heart of CONU is our token. In this proposal, we create the conditions and mechanisms (smart contracts) for the first token offering of our ecosystem.

3. Regulation: Since we work with real money and collect real money, we need to create the legal framework to meet the requirements for regulation by Jurisdiction Lichtenstein. This way, with the first private token sale, we can ensure that we achieve proof-of-concept before going public and raising money publicly. 

4. Launchpad: We develop an MVP version of the launchpad, where the first impact-driven projects can apply for funding and report their ongoing processes. 

What happens after the proposal (future roadmap):

• Develop and implement a unique reputation system into the funding process to decentralize the decision-making, the risk-taking and the record-keeping
• Regulatory process to publicly issue our security tokens
• Further development of the launchpad including On-chain-voting
• Develop a measurement process for expected and generated real-world-impact, rather than assessing output only via benchmark analysis. 
• Further development of CONU Treasury in the direction of a DAO

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Before we explain why we have chosen this challenge for DOON, let's first tell you why we chose Cardano and Project Catalyst as the best place to start this project. First of all, we believe that Cardano is the blockchain for true decentralization. We support and contribute to this community by making our projects open-source, so that everyone can understand and learn from it. Our team has been involved in Project Catalyst since the beginning, and we see it as the best playground in which to experiment on novel models for decentralization and governance. We see this fund as a great opportunity to find real solutions to real problems. That's why we've been a part of this movement so far and will remain so.

Why this challenge?

This Challenge is looking for 'impactful use cases' that will run on Cardano. We understand the goals and main KPIs of this challenge to be the following:

• Cardano become a thriving ecosystem for better alternatives over current centralized providers
• Increase overall quality of Cardano dApps in the ecosystem
• Increase new viable applications on Cardano
• Attract more users to Cardano

Why is our approach so effective and who benefits from it?

• Purpose-driven enterprises and projects gain easier access to funding for their projects
• Private & institutional investors get easy access to purpose-driven enterprises
• Token owners hold a token backed by real assets (balance sheet of the CONU treasury). Therefore, we provide an attractive long-term investment opportunity that is not only stable in value, but also has a positive impact on the environment and society.
• Cardano-Community: creating an impactful and purpose-driven (value-based) use case; we will also share our insights on reputation and decentralized governance to help Cardano become the go-to blockchain for true decentralization.

Comparison to some other existing projects in and outside the Cardano ecosystem:

• Shardlink (Proposal in Fund 9): This is a fundraising platform for NGOs; project token is a utility token for governance
• Cardashift: Also active in the field of impact investments. But offers only a utility token instead of a security token like we do.
• Social Impact Network: bridges DeFI and traditional impact investing, opening the door for these two worlds to merge into one for a sustainable future that supports mass blockchain adoption. But no publicly trackable progress in the last year. 

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

We have analyzed related initiatives in the blockchain industry and identified the following risks for our project:

a. We are not getting regulatory approval for the STO in Lichtenstein

b. The business model and the underlying tokenomics does not take effect

c. There is not enough capital to put enough time and development into the platform

d. Adoption within the industry and community takes too long

e. The technical requirement of Cardano blockchain is not evolving in our needed direction

f. Underestimating the complexity of the development and implementation required

Our strategies

We are adopting the same strategy that we have used for different business ventures: build a buffer into our development and budget forecast that leaves room for refactors. Our strategy is to remain transparent on our progress and report any adjustment in our monthly reporting within Catalyst.

a. We have already identified Lichtenstein as the best place for our STO, as we can meet the guidelines and requirements there with manageable effort. In case we need to do further research or changes, we have already agreed on a fixed price with a partner in the budget (see budget section), which covers our entire preparation for the regulatory process. We have also included higher legal fees in the budget, as this is the critical aspect for our proposal. 

b. The underlying business model and tokenomics are designed from the ground up so that the underlying value of the CONU token does not depend on pure supply and demand (and is thus highly susceptible to price fluctuations), but has an underlying value (cash flow via treasury management). Nevertheless, it is important not to underestimate market influences. That's why we are starting with a small private token sale first to align our learning curve with our resources and capacity. 

c. As we have a long term plan and roadmap, it is of course important that we ensure as early as possible that we have the necessary financial resources to build CONU sustainably. This project is a spin-off from the startup factory CONU21 and thus has access to experienced entrepreneurs and a network of seed investors. CONU will access various resources (private and venture capital, pre-token sales, STO) to be solvent in the medium term. Catalyst funding forms a building block of seed funding for this project.

d. Since our model is based on an active community (consisting of purpose-driven entrepreneurs and investors), it is of course essential that we generate sustained interest in our ecosystem and attract our target audience. Therefore, community management is an important part of our activities from the very beginning. It is important to us to have permanent interaction with the community and to actively integrate them into the development of CONU. Therefore, we will reward community engagement. 

e. Currently, Cardano Blockchain meets our requirement and its corresponding future roadmap is aligned with our plan. And fundamentally, we are very confident that Cardano is the right blockchain for our use case.

f. Our approach is to overestimate development on this part and make sure our capacities are well used in order to leave space for unexpected developments.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

We have established a six-month timeline for implementation of all items in the proposal, assuming a start date of September 1, 2022.

What has already happened:

• Draft of the whitepaper and tokenomics
• Selection of the jurisdiction for the regulation of the security token offering
• Market Research with potential enterprises and investors

Scope of this proposal:

At the end of the six-month period, we will be able to present a functional proof-of-concept of our idea and a MVP version of the CONU Launchpad. We have divided the proposal into 5 areas:

1. Tokenomics-Model

Based on our business model, we formalize the token model, which in turn forms the basis for the technical implementation. We will further develop our whitepaper that will contain complete and transparent information about the business model, the tokenomics, the expenditure of funds and the legal framework. We also finalize the definition of our ‘CONU impact standards’ to measure the positive impact of enterprises.

• Lead: Susana Chloe
• Timeline: July - Oktober 2022
• Outcome: extended whitepaper including the detailed tokenomics model

2. Technical Development

Step 1: Smart Contract development

Any dAPP for STO launch and development requires the development of smart contracts to implement the complex business logic for the security tokens. The Cardano Blockchain ensures reliability and transparency. 

Step 2: Wallet integration

Investing in STO involves token exchange. To register the transactions of sending, receiving, storing the tokens, a wallet is a must. 

• Lead: MetaLamp
• Timeline: October - December 2022
• Outcome: The protocol will be published on our Github page

3. Product Development (MVP Launchpad)

Define the basic functionalities of the MVP version of the platform. Based on this, the design of the platform is created. After that we can start to develop all the features:

• creating & managing account
• submission form for ideas
• platform dashboard
• rating & reviewing & commenting features
• Ui/UX-Design
• Voting interface
• STO informations and dashboard

• Lead: Thomas Zuchtriegel
• Timeline: October - December 2022
• Outcome: Website with the CONU launchpad

4. Legal documentation for the STO

Digital Assets are seen as high-risk commodities. Therefore, we need the right legal structure in order to incorporate tokenization into our business model, to get approval from regulators and simplify the working processes with our funders, the impactful enterprises and our community. Regulation for us means having our credibility officially authenticated to all stakeholders.

In order to set the right framework we will work with a legal partner. This will include the following tasks:

• STO regulation process for Lichtenstein (this jurisdiction suits best our project in terms of estimating legal risks, requirements of the company and the existing strategy)
• prepare legal documents that protects investors and other participants of the project (token purchase agreements, subscription agreements)
• Corporate structure and tax estimation
• The financial and legal structure of the CONU-token

• Lead: Stobox Inc.
• Timeline: September - December 2022 
• Outcome: Legal framework for the STO

5. Project & community management

We already see community management as an important part of the proposal, in order to involve the target group (purpose-driven entrepreneurs & investors) in the development of the ecosystem from the very beginning. Therefore, we will participate in different online & on-site events and, if necessary, organize online events to discuss with the community and present our progress. The goal of this proposal is the proof of our concept and business model with the first successful STO and fundraising of purpose-driven entrepreneurs. Even though we know a 6-month timeline for creating the legal and technical framework plus executing the first funding round is very tight, we believe it is possible. If the launch of the first token-sale and the first funding round will take more time, we have planned a cost buffer and have at the time of the token sale further funds to cover the administration costs.

• Lead: Dominik Tilman
• Timeline: September 2022 - February 2023 
• Outcome: 1st successful STO and 1st successful funding round for impact-driven entrepreneurs

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

We have divided the budget into 5 areas. We have calculated the estimated time to the best of our knowledge. Of course, there are always uncertainties, which is why we have, for example, planned an additional sprint for open tasks in both development sections. The hourly rates represent a fair payment for our team. For the development (product & technology) we have given an average hourly rate, since both senior and junior developers are used. 

• Project management

including the following tasks: organization and coordination of proposal execution, communication with contractors, accounting, monthly reporting, community management (onboarding, events), presentation of milestones & results, finalize whitepaper & tokenomics, creating 'CONU impact standards' (to measure impact of purpose-driven enterprises), marketing activities for the first STO & funding round for impact-driven enterprises, execution of the first STO & funding round for impact-driven enterprises

60 hours/month x 6 month x $60/hour = $21,600

• Legal Framework

For the legal aspects we work together with a partner. The amount for the selection of the right jurisdiction, the entire preparation for the regulatory process and the elaboration of the legal structure of the tokens costs a fixed sum of 10,000 USD (https://stobox.consulting/tokenization). We calculate further legal advice at another 5,000 USD. In addition, there are the costs for supervision of the regulatory authority of Liechtenstein, which will be approx. 5,600 USD for the first token offering: 500 EUR basic costs + 0.25% of the first STO; calculated on the basis of an emission of $2M (source: https://impuls-liechtenstein.li/kapitalbedarf/). 

Legal Advisory 15,000 USD + Regulation Authority 5,600 USD = $20,600

• Product development (Launchpad):

including 6 bi-weekly sprints for the following tasks: 1. define functionality, 2. Mockups and web design, 3. + 4. Website development 5.. additional sprint for open tasks, 6. MVP testing

60 hours/sprint x 6 bi-weekly sprints x $50/hour = $18,000

• Technical development (Web3): 

including 6 bi-weekly sprints for the following tasks: 1. smart contract architecture 2. smart contract development 3. wallet architecture 4. wallet development, 5. additional sprint for open tasks, 6. MVP testing

60 hours/sprint x 6 bi-weekly sprints x $65/hour = $23,400

• Additional expenses

Software licenses, fees, event tickets, unexpected costs: $5,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

The core team consists of experts who have many years of experience in building startups. In addition, we have an expert for each area (business, legal, product, community) in the team. To ensure that our team meets the requirements of technical development, we have decided to work with experienced partners for the respective tasks and steps, as they have a wider range of relevant experts who have already successfully worked together on projects. This includes experts in technical writing, front & back end developers, graphics and content specialists, and UI/UX specialists, Plutos & Haskell specialists. This gives us the necessary flexibility and depth to ensure the completion of the proposal.

Core Project Team:

Dominik Tilman: Project management & research

Dominik has been an active part of the Catalyst community since Fund 3. He has been part of the Catalyst Swarm initiative since the very beginning. He co-founded IdeaFest and has successfully organized and executed it since Fund 5. He is also part of several successful proposals. Professionally, he mainly advises startups and actively helps in the founding phase to develop the right business model and to market the ideas sustainably.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikstumpp/

https://www.dominiktilman.com

Thomas Zuchtriegel: Product management

Thomas is and has been involved in a variety of startups and has successfully built buisiness units. He brings a wealth of experience as an entrepreneur and will help CONU launch its operations and successfully execute its first token sale and funding round for impact-driven companies. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaszuchtriegel/

Susana Chloe: Business & Tokenomics

Susanna is Executive Director of Unification Fund at ICV and a well-known expert in the field of DAO, blockchain and startup building. She helps CONU with building the business model, the first token sale and funding round for impact-driven companies. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannachoe/

Vera Hantel: Marketing & Grafik Design

Vera is a marketing consultant specialized in design, content creation and B2B multichannel marketing. She will create the design of the platform and will help to establish our marketing and community channels.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vera-stumpp-436b971b1/

Contractors & Partnerships for the execution of the proposal:

MetaLamp: Technical development and blockchain integration

MetaLamp has a tremendously talented team (80+ developers) that have already developed a variety of MVPs and products in the Cardano Ecosystem (including an NFT marketplace for IOG). Many have worked with Haskell for 5 years or more. Many of the team members have completed the Plutus Pioneers course and are active in the community. Contact persons: Rostislava Glebovich, Iana Geidrovich

https://www.metalamp.io

Conu21 LLC: Startup Factory

Conu21 is a startup factory to help transformative ideas turn into reality. The network behind Conu21 will assist with business modeling, financing and mentoring of the team. Furthermore it will provide the legal framework for CONU during the launch phase.

https://www.conu21.com

Stobox Inc.: Legal advisory

Stobox Inc. is an award winning tokenization company that has great consulting expertise for legal aspects of digital assets such as security tokens. Their experienced team will provide us with a profound understanding of legal issues and help to create the optimal legal framework for CONU.

https://www.stobox.consulting

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

If the further technical development of the platform includes open-source elements from which other projects could benefit, we would consider further proposal(s). Basically, we will secure our capital needs for the market launch through other sources. There are different options like VC or token sales.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Our approach is to operate as transparently as possible, so that the community has the maximum possible insight into the project on the one hand and can also participate in the project on the other. Therefore we provide different sources for the documentation:

• Website: We will created a sub page on our website to give the community easy access to all relevant documents, links and reports that we have published
• Github/Gitbook: We have created a new GitHub-page to publish our technical development and to track our ongoing activities
• Official monthly Catalyst reporting:
• During monthly reporting we share our activity board for the project as well as the developer sprint velocity for development tickets
• During monthly reporting we share estimated parts of work in our detailed budget/timeline that need more or less time than expected to get an estimate on the forecasted completion date

Metrics to measure our progress and success:

1) 1st Private token sale:

• Capital raised in the private token sale
• Number of people participating in the private token sale

2) 1st round of funding for impact-driven enterprises:

• Number of proposals submitted
• Number of wallets participating in the selection process
• Proportion of CONU tokens participating in the selection process

3) Community goals:

• Number of followers on our newly created channels
• Number of contributors on Github

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

The key objective of this proposal is the proof-of-concept of CONU by initiating the first private token sale and funding the first purpose-driven enterprises. For our first token sale, we will be reaching out to high net worth individuals (and have already done so) and have also started building our own community. In the best case we hope for a good mix of individual high net worth individuals and a growing community.

A successful completion of the proposal means that we will have a functional launchpad and tokenomics within the specified timeframe, which we can then use to approach both market entry and further financing of the project. However, we would like to further define success in two levels:

'Good' & 'Very Good'

'Good' means:

1) 1st Private token sale:

• Raised capital through private token sales: $500.000
• Number of individuals participating in the private token sale: 10

i.e., we need at least 10 high-income individuals or organizations (e.g., foundations) to invest $50,000 each; which is realistic based on our conversations with interested parties to date.

2) 1st round of funding for impact-driven enterprises:

• Number of proposals submitted: 20
• Number of wallets participating in the selection process: 10
• Proportion of CONU tokens participating in the selection process: 50%

3) Community goals after 6 / 12 month:

• Number of followers on our newly created social media channels: 1.000 / 5.000
• Number of contributors on Github: 5 / 10

'Very Good' means:

1) 1st Private token sale:

• Raised Capital in the private token sale: $2M
• Number of people participating in the private token sale: 2.000

i.e. we have at least 20 high-income individuals or organizations (e.g. foundations) investing $50,000 each + about 2.000 individuals investing $500 on average; which is ambitious for the first sale, but our goal.

2) 1st round of funding for impact-driven enterprises:

• Number of proposals submitted: 30
• Number of wallets participating in the selection process: 1000
• Proportion of CONU tokens participating in the selection process: 75%

3) Community goals after 6 / 12 month:

• Number of followers on our newly created channels: 10.000 / 20.000
• Number of contributors on Github: 10 / 20

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is completely new and independent from previous proposals of this team. However, the involved persons have been part of multiple successful funded and executed proposals (like Idea Fest Fund 5 to Fund 9, Fund 7+8 Campaign).

Also: CONU has no other proposal submitted (neither in this challenge or in any other). To make the scope of our project more transparent and comprehensible to voters and CAs, we didn't split the tasks in different proposals.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to end poverty, conserve biodiversity, combat climate change and improve livelihoods for everyone, everywhere. One part of the agenda is to develop innovative financing mechanisms to fund operations on the ground and to catalyze and implement sustainable enterprises and initiatives across the world. 

With the CONU ecosystem we support directly the SDG’s goals of promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth (8), ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (12) and strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development (17).

With distributing at least 25% of our generated profits to non-profit organizations we aim for more social, economic and ecological resilience. For example, based on data from a wide range of ecosystems, for every dollar spent on restoration, between three and 75 dollars of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected.