Vent’s DeFi launchpad is the first multichain community crowdfunding project aiming to help blockchain creators gather early-stage funding for their projects. It is also made to help individuals find and put their funds toward promising DeFi projects.
The company launched in 2021 with a dual IDO with DAO maker, raising over $168,000. In August of the same year, the company secured over $1.5 million in further investments. The first quarter of 2022 showed Vent as the best performing IDO launchpad in terms of ROI. In 2021 alone, the company launched 6 crypto projects with over $2.3 million in volume.
Vent was founded by Aironas Šeputis, Alexander Kunzmann, Lucas Mateu, and Tigran Ghazaryan. These are either blockchain experts with high experience starting successful firms in the tech industry or application development experts. They share a united vision to provide what they call “The right way to experience DeFi. Building the economy of the future.”
Today, we’ll be looking at how well they’ve managed to do that. We’ll be analyzing what Vent does that sets it apart from its competition, its track record so far, future plans, and whether or not you should consider Vent’s DeFi launchpad for your own DeFi project.
Vent is a first-of-its-kind multichain community crowdfunding company aiming to help DeFi startups in their early development stages. Its approach to crowdfunding emphasizes security and simplicity, finding secure ways to provide startups with funding, without bogging its approach down with needless complications.
Vent uses the $VENT token to drive its ecosystem. This token lets users gain access to token sale allocations as well as earn interest either by staking the token or reaping loyalty rewards from participating in IDOs. Project creators can also agree to receive funding through VENT tokens, which will in turn reduce their fees. Holding $VENT also has the benefit of being able to directly involve yourself in the company’s operations by voting on proposed changes.
Vent offers the startups they select a frictionless launch with full-service incubation and marketing support. In the future, they plan to implement a subscription service to help manage cap tables and token sales. The company earns its revenue by taking a percentage from the funding, which incentivizes them to only support projects they truly believe in.
Have you ever looked at a promising project looking for funding, only to pass on it due to fear of it being a scam, or taking decades to develop? Vent aims to resolve this issue by implementing a rigorous vetting process, continuous updates on project development, and by providing asset protection.
The Vetting Process
Many DeFi launchpads rely on the sheer magnitude of DeFi startups in order to fund high-quality projects. Many of them don’t do their due diligence reviewing smart contract code. This can lead to accidentally funding a project that has a malicious contract within. While this might seem unlikely at first, the most successful of these attacks stole over $60MM in Ethereum.
Vent understands that just because a project looks high-quality, that doesn’t mean it has a feasible business model and a long-term plan for success. Vent aims to be the “responsible adult” in the DeFi crowdfunding infrastructure by carefully pruning through potential startups and only highlighting those that meet their standards.
The first thing they look at when vetting a startup is the project’s long-term value to the DeFi ecosystem. This means they avoid projects that are pure hype. Next, they’ll look at how feasible the project is, and the quality of the aspiring startup’s roadmap. Finally, they’ll dive deep into the startup’s smart contract code to ensure it’s safe to use.
Asset Protection Measures
Many of us have been burned by helping fund a project that ultimately disappears or ends up in development hell for years. Many other launchpads even require their users to hold large amounts of money in tokens to even begin funding projects.
Vent aims to ensure that all of its users feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth when funding their pet projects without holding massive amounts of tokens.
They’ve implemented a base guaranteed allocation(BGA) which lets all users with an average holding score of at least 5000 $VENT. The average holding score is calculated by taking the average of your holdings at 7 random points within 7 days and dividing it by 7.
Vent implements an innovative system where funding is held in escrow until a startup completes certain milestones. This means if a project gets stuck in development hell, user’s funds aren’t transferred until the startup is able to move on from its setbacks.
In case a startup launches without meeting Vent’s requirements, users are refunded all of the funds invested into that particular project.
What Does This Mean In Reality?
The benefits of these measures reach further than what meets the eye. Many similar launchpads that don’t implement a high-standard vetting process are flooded with projects of varying quality. This means that users that are looking for products to fund will face a myriad of projects that don’t really capture their imagination.
This leads to users paying less attention to each individual startup. They’ll quickly scroll through their options, potentially passing up on extremely promising projects. On Vent, users are only faced with startups that are already showing promise in their early stages.
While this means fewer total projects on the platform, that means users will look at each one in closer detail. This provides startups with a great opportunity to get viewed by users that are really paying attention to their innovation.
Vent’s intense asset protection and security measures also make users more likely to actually fund projects. This is further amplified by Vent’s low gas fees due to their partnership with Polygon. Since users know they won’t waste their funds on startups that don’t perform or turn out to be market manipulation schemes, they find it easier to put trust in them.
Vent Cares For Their Projects
Many launchpads serve as simply places where startups go to get their first round of funding. Due to Vent’s intense vetting process, they have a lot more resources to allocate to the startups that they do support.
Startups are often light on members with advanced “soft” skills like marketing and business strategy. More often, they’re a dream crafted by visionaries and made possible by people with the right skillset. However, without funding, it can be difficult to attract marketing and strategy experts to your project.
Vent provides the startups on their platform with full incubation assistance. Their marketing experts work closely with project creators in order to determine the right way to command user attention. Furthermore, Vent’s team of professionals will also work with each startup individually to help them carve out their business strategy in great detail. Vent also provides assistance with legal matters, token economy, and exchange presence.
Future Plans
Vent has a highly detailed roadmap detailing its future features that will help users and projects achieve their goals. Currently, they’ve finalized all of their phase 1 goals, with 3 phases remaining. Some notable features Vent plans to introduce include:
- The ability to directly buy crypto with your credit card
- Creating an NFT launchpad
- Multi-chain launches
- Being able to claim tokens directly from the platform
- Paying gas fees in stablecoins
- Giving projects the ability to make interactable profiles users can see and upvote
- A feedback and rating system within the platform
- Releasing Vent on Android and iOS
These features are mainly auxiliary and are intended to make the platform more convenient to use and expand the range of projects they’re able to bring to launch.
Should You Use Vent’s DeFi Launchpad For Your Project?
While Vent is an extremely promising launchpad, it’s not the best choice for all startups. Some startups might have very minimal need for support, and appeal to general audiences enough that they might be better off going with another platform.
However, what Vent does show is an extremely caring and robust system to fund only the most promising startups. While a startup might flourish on other launchpads, Vent provides the highest degree of attention to each individual startup in the industry. If your startup could benefit from being assisted by legal, marketing, or business strategy professionals, Vent offers the best incubation services in the field.
Vent also provides their users with more security and protection measures, which makes them more willing to trust projects on the platform. It helps cultivate a healthy and secure relationship between its users and projects on the platform.
The platform’s track record is extremely promising, with it quickly partnering with big players like Polygon and MELD and topping the charts in terms of ROI. The platform also helps your startup get noticed, as it’ll be featured alongside a smaller cast of startups compared to most other launchpads.All in all, while Vent isn’t right for every project, it’s an excellent launchpad to get your startup off the ground and soar into the sky.