IPChain to present the world’s first IPEX intellectual property exchange and CO-FI crowdinvesting platform at the Open Innovations

On October 17, the IPChain Association (National Coordinating Centre for Processing Transactions with Intellectual Property Rights and Items) acting as an official blockchain partner of the International Forum “Open Innovations 2018”, presented the world’s first IPEX intellectual property exchange and CO-FI, Russia’s first digital crowdinvesting platform for lending secured by intellectual property.

“We are accustomed to paying for and receiving services within the traditional economy, including in the field of intellectual property. In today’s reality, it’s no longer relevant. Digital platforms, on the other hand, have significant advantages: they bring together different people, who interact with each other, pool resources and solve common problems”, said Serguey Matveyev, President of the Federation of Intellectual Property. – CO-FI is a platform, in which investors and banks can come to invest money in the implementation of creative or high-tech projects getting a share in the future product or a creative product as security. In fact, the platform unites those who have ideas with those who have money. But that’s not all: to properly execute transactions and to perform an expert examination, you need assistance of subject matter experts, so the platform involves other participants. Thus, consortia of professionals having resources and creating products are created.”

The CO-FI platform provides rightholders with the opportunity to obtain investment loans secured by intellectual property items. In cooperation with the IPChain Association, CO-FI provides maximum transparency and verification of information on intellectual property items and all transactions with them.

Aleksandr Sukhotin, General Director of the Russian Authors’ Society, emphasized that there is currently no such service that would allow to get a loan secured by intellectual property items. “It is now critical for the majority of creative people: shooting a video clip, money for promotion, arrangement of concerts. As a rule, creative people do not have money in the beginning, but they have products that can be successfully monetized in the future. They can be offered as security, and interested parties can be found that may want to get a guarantee. In this case, the guarantee is a liquid intellectual property item, which will generate income. Accordingly, CO-FI is the platform, in which such interested people can meet”, added Aleksandr Sukhotin.

Maksim Maksimchuk, one of the founders of the SENLA IT project, a business angel with a portfolio of investments of more than $10 million, a graduate and mentor of the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, noted that such projects, which provide investment secured by intellectual property items, open new opportunities for investors. “Ensuring the safety of investments and guaranteeing the return on investment is an integral part of any financial and investment process, and in our sphere it is practically the main component of obtaining financing. A sample of proven projects in the financial and technical sphere, in the sphere of IT and artificial intelligence will remove the most serious restrictions on cooperation with potentially interesting start-ups, projects and developments. They will not be lost to our economy, which will have a significant impact on its development as a whole. Now, when choosing a project for investment, we usually rely solely on expert opinion. It can be erroneous and sometimes simply unsafe for making a decision on investment. A project like CO-FI will help to remove the sometimes insurmountable barriers between the investor and the borrower”, the expert pointed out.

The second project – IPEX – is a large-scale professional platform for transactions of any complexity with intellectual property items. Functioning as a “direct contacts” exchange, IPEX allows a potential seller and purchaser to interact directly in the digital space without intermediaries.

Maksim Proksh, Adviser to the Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation’s Board of Directors on intellectual property issues, noted that IPEX and CO-FI are two services that will implement the market model based on IPChain. “IPEX is a stock exchange where any results of intellectual activity and any intangible objects in general will be traded, sold, disposed of and licensed. And CO-FI is a project that involves seeking funding for new projects. CO-FI will help to move from a prototype to a finished product that is ready to go to market and to become commercially successful”, said Maksim Proksh.