Overview
Interbit uses a combination of Ethereum and BTL proprietary technology that addresses the two major problems facing blockchain in finance: privacy and speed. BTL is the first public - pure play blockchain company.
Company information
BTL Group LTD (TSXV:BTL) is a public company traded in the Toronto Exchange. Offices: in Vancouver and London.
Service/Product Offer
Interbit: A payments and smart contracts platform.
Interbit network: where member banks run individual nodes.
Services: consulting, workshops, proof-of-concept and feasibility studies.
Key Features
1)Multilateral netting and clearing through smart contracts 2)Multilateral credit limits through smart contracts 3)Combined messaging, clearing and settlement 4) Payment processing, with multiple platforms supported (ATMs, bill, cash mobile money), and smart money (built in rules) 5) Bilateral settlement of FX transactions and cross currency payments.
Clients/Backers
XapCash (xapcash.com), which was acquired by BTL, is building a remittances platform using the Interbit product.
During Q4 2016 VISA (visa.com) is running a test for interbank settlement service, with embedded regional compliance. By choosing an Ethereum-based blockchain and not a private permissioned blockchain, VISA signals confidence on the scalability, privacy, and decentralization of the BTL implementation of Ethereum. VISA is also developing a cross-border payment technology (to rival SWIFT) with another company in this study, Chain.
Market validation
Selected as one of six blockchain companies to participate in the EY Startup Challenge 2016, which is focused on building blockchain solutions for digital rights management and energy trading.
Source: Wolfram|Alpha Knowledge base
Funding
Market capitalization CAD ~$16.5m, cash CAD ~$1m
Active revenue generating projects with VISA (visa.com) and EY (ey.com)
Revenue Model: 1) Integration fee target $50,000 to $250,000, 2) Ongoing monthly license fee $5,000 to $20,000, 3) Percentage fee based on volume
On its market segment (Chain, BTL, Digital Asset Holdings, R3, Ripple) only Chain is cheaper than BTL.
Team
18 full time employees (as of October 2016).
The Founder and CEO previously founded Quickbitcoin, a Bitcoin ATM company; the co-founder and CTO has 5 years of blockchain experience and was also a co-founder at Quickbitcoin; the Head of Risk is a certified fraud and cyber crime investigator with experience in the payments industry; one Director was VP at Goldman Sachs; the CFO and Director comes from the Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Pharma sectors; one Advisor has built 40 start-ups in 21 countries.
Regulatory compliance
Preventative compliance and tamper-proof audit trials: Regulators and operators have read only-real time access to monitor risk, Automated AML reporting.
Leverage points
BTL technology is still in proof-of-concept stage.
Website
btl.co
Overview
Symbiont is specialized in âsmart securitiesâ. Focused on 3 product areasâthe Delaware Blockchain Initiative, insurance and syndicated loans. Symbiont uses its own âembedded consensusâ approach to security, in which smart contract functionality is âlayered onâ to make it both energy efficient and less prone to attacks (e.g permissioned contract logic, and transaction execution, reside in different layers); the trade-off is that modularity is required (the ledger and the smart contract are two separate systems)-- although Symbiont offers a blockchain solution, so it is not necessary to have multiple vendors if not desired.
Company information
Symbiont.io, Inc. is a Delaware registered entity. The company is headquartered in New York, which attests its focus on capital markets clients.
Service/Product Offer
Symbiont Distributed Ledger, the original Symbiont blockchain.
Symbiont Smart SecuritiesÂź, the smart contract technology, separate from the underlying network, and that can run on virtually any blockchain.
Symbiont Assemblyâą: a dedicated distributed ledger/append-only database available (allows for unbreakable audit trail) as an API with open-source utility libraries (the application programming interface is conceived for rapid enterprise deployment). By introducing this product they look into improving the cost-benefit ratio: that enterprise client can reduce the risks and costs involved in maintaining multiple disconnected ledgers.
Key Features
1) A simple interface for specifying the terms and conditions when issuing smart securities, as well as integration with market data feeds. 2) Their technology is blockchain agnostic, can operate with Symbiontâs own offering, and almost any other blockchain. 3) Symbiontâs partnership with Gemalto (gemalto.com) makes it one of a few blockchain and smart contract providers to provide security at a hardware level. 4) Symbiont is best in class in terms of high speed, with 80,000 transactions per second (for comparison VISA can handle 56000).
Clients/Backers
Investors are Atlantic Merchant Capital (amci360.com), a private merchant bank, and Celeridem Capital Management (celeridemcapital.com). Individual investors include Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, and Matt Andresen, former co-head of Citadel (citadel.com), one of the leading market makers - largest alternative asset managers in the world.
Clients include the State of Delaware (Delaware Public Archives Project, which will provide record-keeping of professional licenses, property deeds, liens and birth, death, marriage records, and corporate entity records).
Market validation
Symbiont partnered with Goldman Sachs and Blackstoneâs owned Ipreo (ipreo.com), on a joint venture for the global syndicated loan market: Synaps Loans (synapsloans.io). This market is particularly interesting use case for blockchain technology because despite its size (US$ 4.7 trillion) it suffers of severe inefficiencies, with settlement periods ~20 days. The project is currently in proof of concept testing by Credit Suisse in the R3's Lab and Research Center (R3 members include banks BBVA, Danske Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Scotiabank, SociĂ©tĂ© GĂ©nĂ©rale, State Street, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, and buy-side firms AllianceBernstein (abglobal.com), Eaton Vance Management (eatonvance.com), KKR (kkr.com) and Oak Hill Advisors (oakhilladvisors.com)).
Funding
USD 8.25M in 2 rounds (as of October 2016).
Team
The Chairman of the Board & President has 22 years experience in Wall Street (Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Salomon Brothers), 15 of those as Managing Director. The CEO and Co-Founder holds two patents in electronic foreign exchange trading systems and has 15 years of management experience; The CTO and Co-Founder, and the Managing Director of Operations and Co-Founder were also founders at Counterpary, also included in this study; the EVP Sales and Marketing has 20 years of experience; most of the developers are experienced (10 years or more) but tend to come from outside the blockchain space.
Regulatory compliance
Symbiont is working with the State of Delaware on its Delaware Blockchain Initiative.
As a private blockchain for commercial applications, Symbiont also supports arbitration between parties through normal legal and regulatory channels.
Leverage points
The syndicated loans product is still in proof of concept phase, and the insurance technology (catastrophe swap platfor...
