Well, THIS is a perfect example of how an ICO should work. Yeah, we all have heard about the ICO that raised $50M while you went to the refrigerator for a second and an ICO is "instant" money. It's NOT. Here is an example of a responsible way to raise capital via a token offering. Sadly, it was not done in the U.S but rather Thailand. Omise raised just $25M after raising $20M earlier from a "traditional" VC. Just goes to show, ICO's ARE a new legitimate capital source. Congrats Omise, nice work.
(Bill Taylor, CEO)
"By now you’ve probably heard of ICOs. The alternative fundraising option has been used to raise more than $500 million in funding this year alone, but it has gotten a reputation for unfinished products and untested teams raising gargantuan sums.
One company may have just shown that there is a responsible way to handle an ICO.
Omise, a fintech startup based in Thailand, has closed $25 million in new financing via a token sale, more commonly know as ICO, that closed today. In doing so, it become the most established tech company to date to take this financing route.
The company, which has raised over $20 million to date from traditional VC investors, held the token sale to raise capital to develop a decentralized payment platform — Omise Go — that it hopes will disrupt the current banking system. The idea is to enable any Omise Go user to share funds through the network without the need for a bank account and without incurring fees or incurring cross-border costs. Beyond peer-to-peer payments, the company plans to sign up retail partners to extend its utility into purchases, and open the system up to other payment players, too.
Omise Go remains under development, however, and it isn’t expected to launch fully until late next year although initial services and products will go live from Q4 2017. When it does launch, it will be powered by OMG, the Omise Go cryptocurrency which is based on ERC20 token standard and was sold in this ICO. OMG token holders will be given the opportunity to make money helping to run the network. That’s much like a software license in traditional thinking, and it mirrors a wider move by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who is working on ‘Casper’ proof-of-stake functionality for the cryptocurrency..."
Source: TechCrunch