With Fetch CEO, Humayun Sheikh, About Digital Assets, Binance Launchpad and Dinosaur in His Garden.
Founder and CEO of Fetch.AI, Humayun Sheikh, was kind enough to answer our questions about Fetch.AI fundraising, plans for the future, role of digital assets, competitors and outcomes from 2018.
Would you be so kind to describe the target audience of Fetch.AI products. Do you have a business development plan? Can you share some highlights?
Our BD strategy in the medium term is two prong; build a developer community and engage corporate partners.
To engage the developer community we plan to release and enable deployment of various ML/AI solutions with a click and deploy approach. This would enable developers with a wide range of experience and knowledge to participate.
For corporates we have to be specific to target businesses which are asset or infrastructure providers and get their buy in into the new type of economy based on decentralisation and AI.
Fetch.AI can help a whole range of audiences from individual end-users to companies and governments. Three of our target audiences are technical developers, corporate technology leaders and academics.
Who are Fetch.AI’s competitors? What are the weaknesses/strengths compared to competitors?
We don’t believe there is currently a scalable smart ledger project which delivers a scalable, AI-driven digital world for multi-agent systems to be deployed and prediction models to be built. We operate in an exciting space and there are a few projects that intersect with some of the areas that we are also involved in. Here is an incomplete list of such projects:
- Hashgraph (does not have inherent ledger intelligence)
- IOTA (IoT data exchange with no autonomous intelligence in the data items)
- Ocean Protocol (a marketplace for data and algorithms)
- SingularityNet (an introduction service for AI functionality)
- Satori (platform on hashgraph ledger/protocol which does not inherently include any intelligence features)
- Neurochain (we do not have enough information to draw a conclusion at this stage, but we continue to watch it with interest)
Our approach is to build our framework on top of our own ‘Smart Ledger’ from the bottom up, with intelligence built into it from the start, and with the tools to create and refine a collective intelligence, and deliver it to all of its users. Fetch.AI Autonomous Economic Agents are able to adapt dynamically to deliver or receive value. Our economic framework allows dynamic marketplaces to be created by the AEAs, which is unique.
What are the key outcomes for you from 2018?
In 2018, we made major strides developing and moving forwards our technology. Our achievements included:
- Multiple releases of the ledger code (the first in September)
- Release of the Open Economic Framework (OEF) (December)
- First release of SDK for agents to connect and negotiate on the OEF (December)
- Our internal test-net with up to 250 nodes became operational (September)
- A total of seven patents were filed
- Our technical team of AI, machine learning and blockchain experts increased to more than 35 engineers.
Last year we also established a growing profile in the industry. Alongside Ripple, NEM and EMURGO/Cardano we founded Blockchain for Europe. The association represents blockchain originating organisations in an attempt to create a unified voice for the blockchain industry at European level.
We were also proud to announce our involvement in the MOBI consortium, collaborating with companies such as BMW, Bosch and Ford. The group is dedicated to exploring the opportunities of applying blockchain technology for the benefit of the mobility industry, consumers and communities.
In 2018, we attended more than 40 events and conferences and held company meetups all over the world.
What are the key mistakes that you have made in 2018 or what would you have done in a different way?
Hindsight is 20–20, as they say. Looking back, it is easy to say that given the knowledge we have now there are things that could be done to refine the process. But that having been said, we’re in a market that changes, prices move, things happen and predicting such things accurately is about as likely as me finding a dinosaur strolling around by garden. The key part of delivering any project like this is to focus on the delivering part: we have a vision, we have the innovations and the people necessary to deliver it and everything comes from that. In the meanwhile, surrounding ourselves with such incredible advisors and going out there and meeting people — talking to our supporters, our investors, our commercial partners, at conferences, at meetups, with regulators, everyone, because that ultimately makes all the difference. So in short, sure, if I spend enough time thinking about it there could be things done differently but then we wouldn’t be here, today, in the position we are in.
What are the key challenges for 2019?
We will continue to grow our world class team in order to deliver our ambitious roadmap. By the end of 2019 we will have publicly released our mainnet, allowing individuals to build agents and exchange value. View our roadmap here: https://fetch.ai/#/roadmap
Do you have a long term vision? What will happen with Fetch in five years?
Fetch.AI is a disintermediation agent. It moves control and power from the centres of the network to those at the outside, giving ownership of our utility, our identity and claims made against it back to us. But it is grander than that: with autonomous economic agents, we’re allowing emergent solutions to grand problems, we’re creating a world where an endless population of digital assistants are out there delivering what you need directly to you and doing so by working with potentially billions of other autonomous agents.
Do you agree with the statement: Success of tokenized projects is measured by current price/initial price?
No. Short-term price does not accurately show the state of a project, or indeed the value inside it.
Most of the people consider digital assets as investment opportunity and would like to get return on it. What is digital assets in your understanding?
This is understandable: in a new space where the value is being realised for the first time, there will always be those that wish to hold digital assets for the purpose of them gaining in value. For many, this will be the case, but it is hard to get this right. Imagine trying to invest in dot-com businesses in the late 90s: predicting 2005 from the basis of 1999 would have been challenging, to say the least. Regardless, though, it is important for those that believe in this space — for whatever reason — to get involved as it fuels the innovation that we are seeing.
What is the future of digital assets? What this space will look like in 2–3 years?
This is a relatively new space where we are just scratching the surface. What we have now and what we will have in a few years are completely different, but one thing is for sure: we can’t imagine half of it! Out of new technologies, new convergences, entirely new applications, services and ideas emerge.
Some projects with utility token provide the possibility to convert tokens to equity. Do you plan to offer something like this?
Simple answer to this is “no”, Fetch.AI is a decentralised technology with no central control. As time goes by, it becomes entirely “owned” by all of its users.
How often do you check FET price or current market cap? What should be a market cap of Fetch in one year?
It’s hard not to check the price and market cap, but the important thing is that we focus on the long-term goals and deliver on our roadmap. It is that delivery that ensures the future value of Fetch.AI for all its users.
In regards to fundraising, have you had an equity round, do you plan to have one?
We held a seed funding round between March and June 2018 which raised a total of 23,000 ETH. Our recent token sale on Binance Launchpad was held on 25 February 2019 and raised $6m in 22 seconds.
According to Binance Report you started converting ETH investments into fiat in autumn 2018. Why didn’t you do that before?
All the Fetch.AI pre-sale revenue was held in a multi-signature wallet into which the funds had been received. This wallet was secured with signatures from the management team, our advisors Tokenmarket and providers of the pre-sale funding platform. This was done to demonstrate that these pre-sales revenues were being held securely and also to give confidence to the community that we were operating completely openly and transparently. This is recommended practice during the time between a pre-sale and an ICO.
It was also held in ETH because as the public sale began to be delayed due to market sentiment, we needed to have the ETH in hand as we had commitments to the pre-sale purchasers to the value of that Ether. This is an often overlooked point; had ETH continued to increase in value relative to USD, or returned to growth, we would have needed to hold the ETH to benefit from the price appreciation that our tokens would be compensation for.
These funds were not touched until September 2018, when the continuing decline in the exchange rate meant that we became concerned about leaving those funds in escrow, and as the market was not conducive to a public offering at that time, we realised we needed to start liquidating to extend the runway.
Over the course of the sales of the ETH, the average total conversion price was $165.35 USD: ETH (as disclosed in the Binance research report), and this was the figure we have confirmed to private sale purchasers in the public sale.
Could we have started liquidating the ETH sooner? Well yes of course we could, but only hindsight allows us to see the depth of the winter. In June, July and August it was not at all clear that the sustained depressed exchange rate would continue for another six months.
Can you share some highlights on your cooperation with Binance. Have you reached out to Binance in order to get support with fundraising or was it done from Binance’s side?
Binance reached out to us when they were looking for a credible project with high potential. We explored various other options of fundraising but found that the best way to have varied spread of investor base and community was to go with Launchpad and subsequently to list on the exchange.
Our partnership with Binance means that we can focus on delivering this groundbreaking multi-agent platform with the right team. Technologies like Fetch.AI are disruptive: they act as disintermediation agents in the economy, break down the barriers between centralised entities and opens access to a world powered by decentralised AI. Being listed on Binance Launchpad provided us with the reach, funding, distributed participation and profile necessary to deliver our goals and it has been a pleasure to work with them.
Do you cooperate with Binance in any other field other than fundraising?
Working with Binance has been an incredibly rewarding experience. It is fantastic to have access to such collective knowledge and expertise in the crypto space across the entire global market. They are committed to making access to decentralised projects such as Fetch.AI easy and to remove the complexity and barriers that prevent people getting involved.
Do you personally own any digital assets by yourself? If yes what are those assets?
Yes. Most of us do. And we do so because we’re interested in the space, building things, trying things and wanting to develop the entire ecosystem that we’re in.
Have you personally ever invested in ICO? If yes what are those projects?
Yes, several of us have done so right back to ethereum, but also including IoTA, Tezos, Singularity, Stellar and several others, some of which did not succeed.
If your friend who have never owned any digital assets will ask for your advise on investment in any cryptocurrencies? What will you recommend?
Do your research. Then do some more research. Then after that, get involved in a simple, light way to get familiar with how it all works. As with all things, never put in what you can’t afford to lose. This is an incredible space to be in and the possibilities enabled by decentralised ledger technologies, particularly when coupled with other things like AI and multi-agent systems, are endless. But it’s early: it’s like the Internet in 1994. If you’re interested, if you love the space, if you want to be part of it, then learn and make a start. Enjoy it, take care, and remember: nothing like this, whether it is a cryptocurrency or a utility token, should be treated as a short-term thing. Those of us building the next generation of this technology and enabling its application know that this plays out over years, not days.
When do you expect a market recovery or the next bull run? What are the factors that will influence the start of the market recovery?
As I am fond of misquoting Douglas Adams, people don’t want technology, they want to get things done. And that is key to the success of the space that we are in: we all know that decentralisation has enormous value. It returns control to the individual, it enables scale, it combats monopolistic centralised entities and it brings flexibility as well as a new way of developing solutions. With Fetch.AI, we are building an economic Internet: and this is one of the things that enables new stuff, new applications, new services, all of which are about making our lives easier. It is this kind of thing that makes all the difference and we, along with others in this space, are now delivering things that are making a real difference. That, amongst other factors, will contribute to building this market.
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