Creation of a registered company

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

We are a funded project from F8, called TRACE - Product Tracing on Cardano. We propose to create and maintain a registered company (S.r.l in Italy, similar to an LLC in US).

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Michele is a blockchain developer, working on TRACE.

Stefano is the project manager of TRACE.

We both are intimately familiar with the Cardano Ecosystem and run 2 independent Stake Pool operations on it: ARMN and RABIT, respectively.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We have been in contact with highly specialized professionals in the Italian accounting market. Their advice has been to establish a "Societa' a Responsabilita' Limitata" (S.r.l) to, in essence, incorporate TRACE. The Italian S.r.l is similar in its constitution to a US-based LLC (Limited Liability Company).

The Company will provide a fiscal (for tax purposes) and legal framework for TRACE to operate. This will allow hiring of external contractors, detraction of expenses for tax purposes and other benefits to us as developers and owners of the project.

Further, the Company will protect our perspective clients should our project fail or default. In the long run, our goal is to allow the entities that use our Product Tracing platform to have a say in the development direction of TRACE (through a DAO and Governance Token). The availability of Social Capital for the Company will guarantee our solvency should issues arise.

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

This challenge wants to help funded projects to establish a financial and legal framework for their work. We value the Challenge and are taking the necessary steps to ensure that we can operate in the Cardano Ecosystem with an eye to the local government regulations. The establishment of a registered Company is the first step in that direction.

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

The absence of clear legislation in Italy (but generally in the EU) regarding the digital assets market might be one of the major challenges.

It is mainly for this reason that a major part of the "recurring expenses" found for this proposal will be used to pay a qualified business consultant.

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

The main goal of the proposal is the foundation of the company (S.r.l)

The required step to complete the proposal are:

• create the company
• fund it with the required minimum social capital

The estimated timeline is the total duration of 2 months (depending on the availability of the required professionals, especially the notary public)

we can document the success of our project through the following documentation:

• signed contract for the creation of the company
• bank statements for the account associated with the company
• invoices for the services provided by the professionals

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

All budget items are listed in EUR, the local fiat currency in Italy. The final budget is in USD, and has been rounded down from a spot change of the EUR-USD pair executed on xe.com on June 15th 2022.

Social Capital - EUR 15000

Expenses (notarization, contracting, auditing) for the creation of the Company - EUR 3500

Recurring expenses for maintenance of the Company (yearly, for 3 years) - EUR 3500 x 3 = 10500

-------------------PLEASE see attached quote from S&P------------------

On June 30 2022, at 0807 UTC, the exchange rate EUR/USD on xe.com was

1 EUR = 1.0442293 USD

It follows that the total of 29000 EUR is converted to 30282.65 USD, rounded down to 30250 USD to meet Catalyst requirements.

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

As described in the "[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience." section, the team is composed by two members:

Michele Nuzzi [ARMN] and Stef Montanari [RABIT]. We intend to found the Company with a 50-50 approach, injecting equal amounts (EUR 7500 each) into it.

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

Not planned for this particular topic. Here we are requesting a "one-off" seed funding to establish the Company, as well as secure the legal and fiscal running costs for 3 consecutive years.

We are a new project, and as such can only set goals for the future in terms of adoption of our platform. At this point we want the project to be self-sustaining, but it is hard to estimate when it will become so.

As far as future rounds of funding through Catalyst are concerned, we do intend to stay in touch with the Community and submit applications for further development.

[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?

All the major progress will be shared on the Trace Twitter account for a wider audience.

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

The creation of the Company will be the main goal of this proposal. Documenting the success will be straightforward, as the process will generate a number of official documents. These documents will be signed by us as founders and owners of the Company, in the presence of a notary public within the Italian jurisdiction.

The resulting documentation, together with future detailed budgets for taxation purposes will be uploaded during the reporting phase as supporting documentation.

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

This is a continuation and expansion of Product Tracing on Cardano, a proposal funded in F8 under the Challenge B2B and B2C Solutions.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

9 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

12 - Responsible Consumption and Production