The creation of blockchain has changed multiple industries and continues to disrupt a growing number of them as the technology evolves. Banking was the first and most obvious target. Bitcoin, a groundbreaking transfer of value, initially gave people a way to move funds efficiently and affordably across any number of imaginary lines on a map. Many “altcoins” popped up to compete with Bitcoin but most consisted of similar technical offerings. Then came Ethereum, a smart contract platform that offered trustless transactions. Ethereum seemed to have many business uses with companies actively researching and utilizing private versions of it’s chain for internal recordkeeping, transactions and auditing. Little did anyone know Ethereum would help pave the way for a huge change in the cryptocurrency market.

In 2017 initial coin offerings on the public Ethereum network became immensely popular. Initial coin offerings, or “ICOs”, are publicly crowdfunded token sales which a crypto business launches in order to fund the development of their project. As ICOs exploded into the mainstream people started chanting that this was the end of venture capitalism as we know it. Sadly ICOs were ridden with scams, ill-developed ideas, and excessive amounts of raised money. While the ICO craze died down the imprint they left did not. The general person was able to participate in funding like never before and a glaringly important use case was presented. Stuart Farmer, CEO of the cryptocurrency Lamden, recognized how important this newly found access was and took it a step further with the creation of Zest Fund.

Zest is a crowdfunded cryptocurrency syndicate that provides indirect access to high-quality Silicon Valley deal flow; typically out of reach to the everyday person. Jordan Schneider, Lead Strategist of the project says “Bitcoin was meant to destroy the need for banks and now we see them working alongside it. Who knows, in the far-off future maybe Bitcoin does actually void their power but as of now that isn’t the case. ICOs were seen as a way to make venture capitalism obsolete. It didn’t happen but the reasoning was sound. Venture capitalism is stronger than ever and the Silicon Valley elite hold the keys to the absolute top deals across any market. The fact is while ICOs gave people access to crowdfunding it did so only in the pigeonholed cryptocurrency landscape. Zest provides that same power, that same access, but bridges it to the world of venture capitalism. It’s not about destroying these institutions but instead making sure everyone can access them.”

The Zest Fund works through an Initial Exchange Offering on the LATOKEN platform. After the sale period the funds are changed to fiat and then sourced to top performing venture funds throughout the tech sector. Zest provides on-the-ground support and management of the funds through an in-house comptroller to ensure that VC’s are utilizing it efficiently and properly. When the VC funds turn a profit the money is then sent back to Zest who then initiates a mass buyback on the LATOKEN exchange. The purchased tokens are then burned (removed from the supply) and thus the total amount of available tokens is forever decreasing, theoretically increasing the demand-to-supply ratio.

Zest is conceptualizing multiple funds running at the same time. The first iteration will be going live soon, on the LATOKEN exchange. Check in at http://zest.fund for up to date info and dates.