Innovations Incubator

BTRIC’s Innovations Incubator program is a business incubation and startup accelerator for emerging technology businesses.  Its mission is to identify, foster, promote, and launch businesses that focus on emerging technology.  BTRIC provides support in key areas to make sure that great projects can complete their research and development phase, be infused with best-practices guidance, and launch as separate, independent businesses, investment-ready, meeting all applicable legal and regulatory requirements and poised for growth.

Our mission is similar to that of traditional, brick-and-mortar business incubators, but we are focused on projects based on emerging technologies.  Rather than a focus on a particular geography, we focus on the transformative technologies that are just beginning to make profound changes to society and open markets.  Like any business incubator, our goal is to build better businesses and promote economic growth by facilitating well-designed projects, progress, and positive outcomes.

BTRIC’s goal for each project in our Innovations Incubator program is for projects to remain focused on delivery of their product or service.  In order for that to happen, BTRIC helps handle their administrative management, coordination of donation and team members, and providing research and development infrastructure.  Ultimately, for a great project to transition to a successful business venture, the idea and the code is not enough.  Several other components need to be assembled and maintained, especially funding, team and project organization, and infrastructure.  Our program focuses on these key areas, freeing the project team to focus on what they do best.

• Funding: While a project is in the incubation program, we will work to keep it funded with the help of our partners and donor contributions – monetary, assets, and in-kind. Through our incubation program, we will also work with the project to assemble the materials needed for a successful launch of a business, including a business plan, white paper, regulatory and legal review and compliance.  If they have yet to form an entity, we will help them select the jurisdiction that is best for their project, considering regulatory, legal, and logistical factors.  This is an opportunity for donors such as venture capital firms and angel investors to donate to financially support projects that could become potential investment opportunities.
• Organization: Many great ideas never make it to being a successful business because of a lack of project organization, oversight, focus on delivery, and inability to assemble and maintain all parts of a cohesive team. Projects that are in our incubation program will develop an outline of the project flow and their expected team and organizational requirements.  We will work with projects to build their team, selecting advisors, marketers, software and/or hardware engineers, security experts, infrastructure, business partners, and other necessary components to build their project and ultimately launch their business.  We will be “hands-on” involved with our projects to ensure that any challenges are identified early and solutions found quickly.  We will keep our projects on track, focusing on their ultimate goal.  We will also communicate the progress of projects that are in our program and keep all stakeholders informed on an ongoing basis.
• Infrastructure: Most emerging technology projects require first-class infrastructure for their operations. Many problems have occurred  in our ecosystem because projects infrastructure was not secure enough, resilient, scalable, or reliable.  Our project will provide them with resilient infrastructure for development and “testnet” type activities, and will prepare them to transition to infrastructure that they will need when they are divested from our incubation program as independent businesses.  This is an opportunity for partners that we work with to demonstrate their offerings and capabilities to projects that could become potential clients.

Of course each project has a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, needs, and capabilities.  BTRIC offers each project in the program unique assistance tailored to their needs.  While the needs of a given project may differ, the goal remains the same: turning promising projects into viable businesses and then launching them.  While every project is unique in some ways, there are many elements that are common to most of the projects that will be in the program.  In those areas, we will be able to leverage scale to help our projects accomplish their objectives more efficiently.  We will work with outside professionals to advise and provide professional services related to projects, including work that can be applied to multiple projects, and will continue to improve both our programs as well as their content to keep up with best practices and evolving technology.

While a project is completing the program, BTRIC helps prepare, refine, and ultimately implement a business launch plan for the project.  Depending on the type of project, and the legal jurisdiction chosen, this could mean that a project could launch as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or Initial Token Offering (ITO), be sold to another organization, be strong enough to launch without raising capital, or even offered through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).  When a project is ready to be divested as an independent business, we help facilitate a successful launch.  Depending on the business type, the funding sought, and the jurisdiction, the needs in this phase will vary.  We will be able to provide the projects we are incubating with assistance with such matters as:

• Connections to project donors that expressed interest as potential angel investors or venture capital funders;
• ICO/ITO platform selection and coin technical advisory;
• Business entity registration and initial organization;
• Marketing planning, including social media marketing;
• Responsible security disclosure program design;
• Escrow and custodial advisory and selection; and
• Accounting and treasury management design and selection.

Since each project is different, the legal jurisdictions where they will be founded as business entities are an important consideration, and all projects that complete our program will be fully legally-compliant for the jurisdiction and launch plan chosen.

When a project launches as an independent business, it does so as a separate legal entity and no longer a part of BTRIC.  Projects in our incubator program agree, as a condition of acceptance, to reward donors in some way when they launch.  This includes all BFD Token holders as well as any donors specific to the project.  Because the projects vary in their business models, and will also vary in the jurisdictions they do business in, this reward will vary from project to project.  It could include (subject to applicable regulatory and legal requirements):

• Credits for use of their product or service;
• Free “not-for-resale” products or services;
• “Airdrop” coins or tokens;
• Buyback of coins or tokens;
• Business relationships as a product or service provider; and/or
• Equity in the newly-created business.

Right now, we’re reaching out to projects that have great potential, and we encourage any project that is interested in exploring becoming part of our Innovations Incubator program to reach out to us.  We are also staying abreast of any government opportunities to implement emerging technology projects or research.  We also come up with ideas on our own on a regular basis, and some of them might be of the calibre to be incubated into businesses.  We want to make sure we can handle the workload, so are being careful as we begin our organization and growth.

After BTRIC launches, we will be developing an application and review process to evaluate projects that want to be a part of the program.  Those guidelines, like everything else we do, will be freely available for anyone to review, use, modify, remix, etc.

If you have more questions about BTRIC’s Innovations Incubator program you can check out our launch white paper, reach out on Twitter or Telegram (or any of our other social media profiles), or just fill out our trusty contact form.  We will get back to you as soon as possible!