Fantasy Equity NFT Game: Invest in Startup Shares?

The Rise of "Fantasy Startup Investing" and Visionrare

The increasing trend of assigning ownership through memes and the rapid growth in valuations of private startups have culminated in the creation of Visionrare. This novel crypto marketplace allows users to engage in “fantasy startup investing,” utilizing real funds to acquire non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing shares in actual startups.

Introducing Visionrare: A Gamified Investment Platform

Launched out of closed beta, Visionrare was conceived by Jacob Claerhout and Boris Gordts as a means of fully realizing the potential of gamified investing. The platform draws inspiration from fantasy sports leagues, providing users with a competitive environment to predict the success of startups. Participants can bid on NFT shares of numerous companies through auctions, striving to assemble the highest-performing simulated portfolio.

Startup Permissions and Platform Policies

Currently, Visionrare’s company database primarily features startups from recent Y Combinator cohorts. It’s important to note that, in most instances, the platform does not possess explicit permission from these startups to utilize their names and logos. However, the founders anticipate that the game-like nature of Visionrare will deter companies from issuing cease and desist notices.

Startups have the option to verify their profiles and receive a portion of their NFT shares for distribution. Alternatively, they can request the removal of their profile from the platform, or simply choose to disregard its existence.

How Visionrare Simplifies Venture Capital

The platform aims to demystify the complexities of venture capital through an auction-based system aligned with the actual fundraising cycles and real-world performance of startups. Visionrare auctions off 100 serialized “VisionShares” per funding round, with initial bids starting at $5.

Users who accumulate at least five shares can join a league and compete against others in a fantasy-style experience. They will ascend or descend on a leaderboard based on the collective value of their VisionShares, determined by the performance of their portfolio.

Future Development and Expansion Plans

As Visionrare transitions into open beta, several key features remain under development. These include the establishment of a secondary market and support for selling VisionShares on external platforms like OpenSea. While users currently purchase VisionShares with credit cards, the integration of cryptocurrency payments is also planned.

Challenges in Measuring Startup Performance

A potential obstacle to scaling a fantasy league lies in the limited availability of publicly accessible performance data. Unlike publicly traded companies, startups are often more reserved in their public disclosures of information, making it difficult to establish concrete metrics like share price or quarterly earnings.

The Visionrare Score and Data Analysis

Visionrare utilizes data from Tracxn to generate a valuation-like “Visionrare score” for each company on a weekly basis. This score serves as the foundation for tracking progress and determining league winners. However, the founders acknowledge that relying heavily on data points such as press mentions, social media followers, and app downloads may create discrepancies between private valuations and the platform’s scoring system.

Jacob Claerhout, formerly involved in early-stage investing at Partech, emphasizes that the scoring process is not an exact science and expresses hope for access to more comprehensive data streams to refine the algorithm.

Ensuring Fairness and Competition

A significant challenge will be preventing users with substantial financial resources from consistently dominating league competitions. League winners are determined by the accumulation of Visionrare score points over a specified period. Given the extended timelines associated with venture capital success, there may be a disconnect between long-term investments in nascent teams and capitalizing on the momentum of trending SaaS startups.

The founders are actively refining league mechanics to maintain a balanced and enjoyable experience as Visionrare expands.

A Reflection of the Current Ecosystem

Visionrare represents an early-stage project created by young entrepreneurs without external funding, embodying the current landscape of both the cryptocurrency space and the startup investment world. The founders believe their platform for trading fake NFT shares can provide a venue for individuals interested in startups to demonstrate their ability to identify promising ventures.

They envision this as a potential source of talent for venture capital firms seeking their next hires.

“It’s a really hard industry to build credentials in and there are a lot of people who have neither the access nor the capital,” Claerhout explained to TechCrunch. “If you believe in a company, buy a VisionShare.”