Verv - VLUX Token ICO Review

Strengths

• A solid company and verifiable team with years of existing business. Sizeable, well networked, skilled and endorsed team
• True industry professionals as advisors
• 70% of the tokens sold on the markets and even the high $50M valuation is justifiable for such an ambitious project
• The renewable electricity trading system is yet to be improved greatly to generate the economic incentives for smart grid infrastructure development. A new energy trade settlement system could solve multiple sector problems and generate vast amount of value for all of the stakeholders. The energy trading systems are very complicated and have a lot of competition, but the winners in the race will have a multi-billion business opportunity in the near future
• The website and white paper quality are above average
• OK visibility on industry listing sites

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Potential concerns

• Some of the roadmap milestones such as “Full Scale International Rollout” seem very vague goals for one quarter. Would be nice to see more detail easily about the expansion plan
• Very low community outreach so far

Company overview

• VLUX combines deep learning AI with blockchain, to improve access to affordable, low carbon energy by enabling peers to trade.
• Using VLUX’s existing energy monitor (“Verv”), VLUX obtains a comprehensive and real-time overview of the electricity consumption of a home.
• Combining this with blockchain technology, VLUX aims to provide a secure and transparent ledger through which energy (and consumer data in a GDPR compliant fashion) can be traded on a p2p basis.
• Green Running, the parent company of VLUX, was founded in 2009 with the initial focus on reducing energy consumption within the commercial market.
• VLUX believes their blockchain-based trading platform represents a powerful solution to enable decentralized control and production of energy at the grid edge.
• Verv is creating a new-form marketplace for energy data which will empower consumers to exchange their data for electricity.

Awards

• Won a project with Scottish Power Networks and Scottish & Southern Power Network’s Energy Innovation.
• Finalist for “Best Smart Grid Innovation”.
• Nominated for “Rising Star Award” in the Energy Awards.
• Peter Davies won “Innovator of the year” in 2016 at the Business Green Awards and was named one of the Top 50 Entrepreneurs in the last 5 years by SETSquared, with an award made in UK Parliament.
• One of only four companies to receive a £150k grant from UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ‘Energy Entrepreneurs’ fund.
• Selected to be on Google Campus’ Launchpad, Google’s global startup program
• Selected to be on Amazon’s Launchpad.
• Maria McKavanagh (COO) was nominated as one of the most influential women in UK Tech by Computer Weekly.
• Voted one of the top 50 AI companies by Silicon Valley media company CIO Story.
• In 2017, they won 3 Business Green Awards: App of the year, Future city technology of the year and Technology of the year.
• Verv won ‘Cisco’s most disruptive startup’ award at Vodafone’s 2018 Arch Summit
• Verv won ‘Best start-up’ at Bitcoinference Europe 2018
• Verv was selected for the Free Electrons accelerator programme which places them as one of the world’s top 15 energy start-ups.
• Verv has received 500k+ in government grants for its blockchain projects

Investors

• Ignite (the social Impact arm of Centrica PLC, the parent company of British Gas).
• http://scytale.ventures/
• AU Capital Partners
• Successful crowdfund, w/ >£1m raised and >1000 investors
• Charlie Crossley Cooke Chief Executive & Owner of Opus Energy Group Ltd. (until being acquired by Drax for £340m in 2017). Mr. Crossley Cooke was responsible for the growth, strategic direction and operational management of the group. He has over 10 years’ experience in the energy trading and retail sectors.
• Ian Marchant Chief Executive Officer of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) from 2002 until 2013.
• Jeremy Oppenheim Ex-Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he founded their Sustainability and Resource productivity practice. He is currently at Systemiq VC investing in sustainability-oriented ventures.
• £150k grant from UK Government Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, and a separate UK Innovate award for power generation forecasting.
• QCP Capital, Zcoin and Blockwall Capital

VLUX value proposition

• VLUX is an ERC20 token with limited supply.
• VLUX tokens will be used for every single transaction within the network.
• VLUX Tokens will be utility tokens providing participation and reward capabilities within the network.
• There is a staking function, as local aggregators have to hold tokens.
• There is a 1% burn function on all transactions in the network.
• Tokens allocation:
• 70% of the total supply of tokens will be distributed to the public.
• 10% will be reserved for distribution among the first 500,000 VHH units sold.
• 20% of the tokens will be kept by the company – 10% will be kept for the VLUX float and 10% will be reserved for future growth.
• Funds allocation:
• 47% for engineering, software, r&d.
• 21% for user acquisition, and building on their track record of delivering high impact, high value partnerships.
• 10% for subsidising the cost of the first 200,000 monitoring units, accelerating adoption of the network.
• 9% for ongoing operations / admin, 8% for legal costs & 5% for contingency.