Crypto bond network now in platform rollout

Last year, blockchain startup Factury told DigFin it would raise $16 million from an initial coin offering to finance its bid to create fixed-income securities for decentralized markets.

Although it expected to raise the entire amount by December – a target it has not achieved – the company did complete a pre-sale raise of $4.8 million in May, and is on track to deploy its blockchain this month, says Arturs Ivanovs, Philadelphia, P.A.-based CEO and co-founder.

Factury’s blockchain platform is called FIC Network, and will be focused on tokenizing bonds in the U.S. via a trading engine, where participants can list, buy and sell any kind of fixed-income instrument, including loans, bonds, asset-backed securities and futures.

Decentraliziation is meant to avoid the need for intermediaries such as a custodian bank or a clearing house, and users trade directly among one another, via a token, FIC coin, that Factury will create for public sale this summer.

The coin’s price will launch at $0.0002, with 150 billion to be issued. That’s $30 million worth including bonuses if the ICO is fully subscribed. Proceeds will go to setting up a New York office and hiring engineers, salespeople and traders sourced from both the blockchain and the bond-market worlds, to support the launch of FIC mainnet later this year.

“We plan to conduct our first trade over our platform by this year,” Ivanovs said.

Ivanovs says Factury is in talks with potential strategic partners – technology consultants, insurance companies and investment banks – to help the startup scale its offering.