November started with an exceptionally exhilarating week here at LEXIT. After several months of being immersed neck deep in intense product and team development, we enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of attending the 2017 Web Summit in sunny Lisbon, Portugal.
Web Summit is an extraordinary event, bringing together 60,000 people from over 170 countries. Attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to young and dynamic tech startups, seasoned with a dash of world leaders and diplomats, such as Al Gore, François Hollande, and many more.
As an event crammed with representatives from the entire tech ecosystem, such as startups, technology hubs, and accelerators, Web Summit is the perfect stage to unveil LEXIT’s blockchain-based Mergers & Acquisitions Marketplace. And indeed, the heartwarming amount of traction our stand and presentation generated led us to the understanding that we’re not mistaken by our assumption that startup M&A could and should be streamlined for the benefit of all parties involved.
LEXIT’s proposal to replace slow, inefficient, and often unfair legacy M&A mediation services, by a decentralized network of matchmakers and appraisers was especially interesting to attendees, visiting our booth. Many entrepreneurs and institutional players in the field approached us and shared their M&A stories, frustrations, and hopes that resonated with our own experience and with those of many in the industry.
We did of course hope for feedback of this kind, yet we were surprised to learn to what extent the appetite for change is prevalent. Besides startup teams looking for lucrative exit venues, we also encountered intense enquiries from hub operators, accelerators, and VC representatives - all of whom are deeply involved in almost daily M&A activity. Uniting all these disconnected, yet interdependent actors in the ecosystem in one fair and easy to use marketplace seemed to be an attractive proposal in the eyes of almost everyone we had a chance to chat with.
There appears to be an industry-wide consensus that in today’s system, M&A mediators serving as middlemen, enjoy a highly privileged position resulting in restricted markets, slow processes, and high costs. Blockchain technology and tokenization models allow us to turn the table on this relationship, and the startup crowd seems eager to see this solution take shape.
After four exciting and refreshing days in Portugal, half of our team is now on their way back to LEXIT headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia. The other half is headed to a conference tour in Asia where we will meet up with supporters, entrepreneurs and the local startup community.
If you want to learn about LEXIT’s presentations and public appearances in advance, stay tuned here on our blog, subscribe to our newsletter, and join us on Telegram.
Warm Regards,
The Lexit Team.