As a quick addendum, without a startup funding focused post for now: I’m mostly active in the angel funding scene.

That means pre-money valuation, often we even operate in the form of a “pre-seed” by offering funding on the principle of a capped convertible note, with interesting terms to the founders.

Currently many crypto funds are also operational in that early stage funding right now because crypto currency for entrepreneurs isn’t too different from “traditional internet startups”.

By which I mean: you can’t ICO for free. It takes a while before any ICO is “ICO ready” (by lack of better term). We, angels, we invest mostly in people, teams rather than in concepts because most often no product market fit has been found yet. Sometimes even no validation yet.

As such the risk of investing before the usual several millions of dollars big A-round is huge. Since legally allowed in 2013, even we angel backers aggregate, hopefully to fund the startup with a bigger amount because what we truly fund is not the product but initial runway.

Mostly sufficient runway to get a basic product out and gain some traction, preferably also some paying users already. Validation and initial traction.

Because raising another round usually takes 6 months. At the very least. There’s a saying that the day you get funded the work to start raising the next round begins. This also applies for A-round funded and already earning startups. Obviously, also to dilute the risks we take. Only one return out of 15-16 angel Investments doth not necessarily mean bad investor. The risks are just that ridiculously high.

Being able to raise an A- and even subsequent B-round doesn’t mean that there’s a profitable startup yet either. That’s important to understand.

Uber, valued north of $50bn, is bleeding money every month. Tesla is bleeding money. Both can run out of money and may need to raise funds again soon.

Ambitious crypto teams also need money, runway up to their ICO. Everybody needs to pay bills, preferably have insurance and also be able to fund a hobby in order not to burn out. Then there’s legal costs like incorporating (investors want incorporation otherwise they have no vehicle to claim their stake), legal costs and since recently also all costs that an ICO brings with it.

Plus development and marketing obviously. Steem Inc. for example isn’t Ned (and previously Dan). They are 38 people

Why invest in STEEM?
(Steem.io by extension, not Steemit as I often read. Steemit is a privately owned website operated by Steem Inc. and a gateway, an interface to the Steem blockchain)

Because every day only 64k STEEM is printed. If SMTs become popular, STEEM will become a “limited” token and become always more valuable.

Additionally, unless cryptoes are banned UNEXPECTEDLY over night, even if the markets collapse people will always have something tangible when investing in STEEM: STEEM. This can be sold.

Many smaller investors in traditional ventures never get to be the one who can send the bailiffs when a startup shutters. With cryptoes, and STEEM, one can always recover a part of their investment at the very least. And the future still looks bright for alternative economies.

These are still very early days. Pre-dotcom crash days. Nobody would have dared to even utter that some day companies like Google and Facebook, and also LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Instagram, Tencent, AliBaba, and Amazon, would ever be worth what they are now. That’s the degree of early days we are at in crypto.

Investment ALWAYS comes at a risk and also requires patience. Lots of it. But we are creating whole new worlds. Platforms such as the STEEM blockchain are even creating whole new Internet [infrastructures] and economies.

The future looks bright and the times to enter are good. The Steem blockchain has one of the most intelligent designs out there. By which I do not mean the technical capabilities of the blockchain, its speed, but the economy design with two currencies and the upcoming SMT network.

This is a short comment addendum/reply.