The Long-Tail Vision for INV Global, an OS for the B2B Ecosystem
It’s not easy to express the full ramifications of the INV Global token offering in 7.5 minutes.
But that’s how much time I had last week at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. I did my best to describe INV Global as a token and application aimed at the corporate venturing sector. I explained how corporate VC is huge and global, but has challenges — such as corporate inefficiency — that we think will be significantly aided by an application for the sector.
What I did not do is explain the long-term vision for INV Global and how it fits with the long-range implications of cryptocurrencies. I will now.
In a marvelous article recently in The New York Times Magazine, Steven Johnson explained what bitcoin is really all about. It’s not a payments system, per se, but a protocol for securely storing and distributing sensitive data via the blockchain.
The true believers behind blockchain platforms like Ethereum argue that a network of distributed trust is one of those advances in software architecture that will prove, in the long run, to have historic significance. … The real promise of these new technologies, many of their evangelists believe, lies not in displacing our currencies but in replacing much of what we now think of as the internet, while at the same time returning the online world to a more decentralized and egalitarian system. If you believe the evangelists, the blockchain is the future. But it is also a way of getting back to the internet’s roots.
Rather than entrusting massive technology companies like Facebook, Apple or Google with distributing data, the blockchain allows every individual (at least presumptively) to distribute any data at will and for any reason, because the blockchain makes data immutable. Want to take your social media data from Facebook to some other newfangled venue? The blockchain allows for it because it ensures the integrity and security of that data. Previously, we had the Anywhere Web. Think of this as the Anything Web.
The fact of the matter is many goods and services, particularly those in the business-to-business ecosystem, involve existing corporations. Let’s take financial services, a sector I have personally been involved with for close to 25 years. The core of banking is a deposit. There is an entire regulatory apparatus around the deposit: companies holding the deposit need licenses; the government has seen fit to insure that deposit; and consumers demand that their deposits are treated with great care and consideration, hence the uproar over ATM fees. If a startup wants to create a new app that, in some way, takes or deals with deposits, then most likely that startup will need to deal with a bank. Sure, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has talked about banking charters for fintechs, but that’s a far-off initiative at this point. So, a chartered bank is required for the fintech app, and the vast majority of banks are traditional corporations, some of which have been around for well over 100 years.
This is not just the case in banking. Corporations in many industries often own the customer relationship, making the startup’s task of creating new customer relationships at scale hard and expensive. Think of the massive sales and marketing engines of Pfizer, Verizon or IBM. There are not a thousand Facebooks or 400 Googles or even 50 Twitters. Getting a startup to scale today, as compared to, say, in 2004 when Facebook launched, is hard. Really hard. Like root-canal-in-all-your-teeth-at-the-same-time hard.
That is why for many startups, especially those focusing on applications for the B2B sector, there is little choice but to partner with an established corporate that has the full complement of infrastructure and a robust customer base. As difficult as it is for a startup to link up with a corporate — and, in some cases, it can be wildly difficult — it is still easier than the root canal of scaling from scratch.
But this world of corporate-to-startup interactions is a ramshackle of practices and idiosyncrasies. Talk to 10 Chief Innovation Officers at large corporates and each will describe a different rigamarole in place at the corporate that a startup must endure in order to secure a proof-of-concept. Often, these processes include pulling in resources from product development, from strategy, from marketing, from the relevant product line itself, from legal, from IT — or some mix thereof. And beyond the uniqueness of the processes, each of these parties that must be engaged often have competing interests, invariably driven by compensation. If the good folks in product development get compensated on the number of new products they launch, why would they want to help a startup launch its product outside the corporate? And you thought Washington, D.C., politics was bad.
Still, over the long run, the need for a more seamless corporate-to-startup world is imperative. To me, the ultimate goal of technology is to allow each consumer to receive the best possible goods and services at the best prices, and if that is the case, Big Tech will never satisfy every consumer, no matter how massive is Amazon. There will always be Walmarts or Nordstroms or whatevers serving some consumers. Therefore, the path to a holistically successful customer experience across all service providers is corporate venturing, which can more efficiently synthesize new technologies and solutions into traditional corporations. Simply put, corporate venturing needs to be better, faster, stronger.
Our intention is to make INV Global the pathway to a future where all consumers receive the best economic results. On the surface, we are building an application that allows for corporate-to-startup transactions. But there’s more at play in the INV application. As more corporates and startups collaborate, sector norms can be established, a more well-worn path to success can materialize. Our plan is for the application to write credentials of agreements to the IPFS, or InterPlanetary File System. This is intended to create a meaningful and immutable history of activity for startups and corporates that leverages the blockchain. This “historic versioning,” as it is called, should enable those 10 CIOs I mentioned earlier to safely and securely share processes, procedures and results, data that was not easily shareable before. As in many blockchain applications, the consequences of this data flexibility may only be known to us in the years to come.
To me, the INV application has the opportunity to create for startups a more consistent pathway to working with a corporate — that “better, faster, stronger” that corporate venturing craves. As a result, subtle refinements to process and procedure may have meaningful results by increasing the likelihood of a partnership from “until hell freezes over” to “we should be able to get this done.” And, on a global basis, that would be revolutionary. As The New York Times Magazine article state, in social media, there is an established database that needs to be set free, and that database is owned by Facebook. In the B2B ecosystem, there is not even an established database that I know of, let alone one that needs more flexibility. It is impossible to say what the ramifications of a more seamless B2B dynamic will be for corporates and startups alike, but all of us at INV Global are excited to find out.
At the center of this effort, we hope, will be the INV token. If we are successful, we intend for it to be the stored value and means of exchange for this new paradigm in corporate venturing. For corporates, that could represent a remarkable leap forward. The ability to contain the value of the B2B ecosystem in such a way seems to be unfounded in corporate history. Previously, the main method for such value capture was through equity acquisition, a costly and difficult path. The INV token should remove the need for that channel of value capture. In turn, with value more readily accessible, corporates should feel emboldened to engage in corporate venturing — again, to the presumed eventual benefit of the global consumer. Collectively, through INV Global, we have the opportunity to create a new “base layer” for the B2B ecosystem, a kind of transactional OS, if you will, for corporates and startups. Sure, it is a bold undertaking and vision, but, to paraphrase the famous Chinese proverb, a journey of 1,000 endeavors starts with a single token.
