Lykke, a Swiss fintech startup building a regulated marketplace powered by blockchain technology, has launched its proprietary 1-year forward offering. The news was unveiled on February 9, at a Lykke-hosted event in Zurich, Switzerland.

The special limited offer, which will be running until February 28th, 2017, provides investors with the ability to obtain a 20% discount subject to holding Lykke coins for 1 year. The company plans to sell 500 million coins with an issue price of CHF 0.04 per coin to raise an estimated CHF 2 million.

The capital injection will be used for regulatory and legal fees, marketing and staffing.

Lykke is currently applying for an investment firm license with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for a multilateral trading facility (MTF) to offer a non-exchange financial trading venue. This is part of the company’s ambition to establish the world’s first crypto-marketplace offering trade execution on a range of financial instruments.

Founded in 2015, Lykke is the brainchild of Richard Olsen, a veteran financial markets executive and a co-founder of OANDA, a retail broker serving over 100,000 retail trading clients worldwide.

The Next Generation Trading

By leveraging blockchain technology, Lykke aims to revolutionize the world of finance with a next-generation trading platform that comes with instant settlement and direct ownership. It seeks to provide a new way for people trade currencies, cryptocurrencies, and cryptographic tokens using their mobile devices and for no fees. Lykke makes money by providing liquidity, issuance services and consulting.

“In the history of Financial Services, it has always been a requirement to have deep pockets to operate on a level playing field,” said Olsen, CEO and founder of Lykke. “With Lykke, the only requirement to enter a level playing field is an internet connection.”

Lykke aims to differentiate itself by providing better security with a centralized matching engine, decentralized immediate settlement, and an open-source approach to typically closed-loop systems that dominate financial services transactions today.

“Genuine change in today’s financial services jungle can only be achieved through robust technology that serves the betterment of all, rather than just its gatekeepers,” said Demetrios Zamboglou, chief business development officer (CBDO) at Lykke.

“Lykke is committed to creating a means for anyone to conduct financial transactions and store their assets in secure digital blockchains, secured from any single authority or counterparty. Blockchain-powered cryptocurrencies are actively demonstrating their superiority over the fiat-paper status-quo, for so long the bastion of big banks. Blockchain technology is here to show financial services as a sector that there is a better way, and there’s no turning back.”

Lykke’s exchange has already gone public. The company is currently building enterprise-scale solutions for large financial institutions.

As of January 2017, Lykke had 3,650 accounts with 12,500 transactions settled totaling US$45 million. The company’s roadmap for the year to come includes the introduction of margin-based trading, securities lending, new asset classes, as well as a new feature called Lykke Payments. The company will also seek regulatory approval from the EU, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

Last year, Lykke conducted an initial coin offer (ICO) which raised over CHF 1.1 million through the selling of 23,226,753 Lykke coins. Lykke coins are registered on a blockchain and issued in the form of colored coins. 100 Lykke coins entitle to 1 Lykke share.

Headquartered in Switzerland, Lykke has subsidiaries and offices in the UK, the US, Cypus and Vanuatu.

So far, the company has raised CHF 2.8 million in funding.

 Lykke Facts