Company Shares on the Blockchain: CONDA AG became one of the world’s pioneers at “digitalization” of company shares

Europe Uncategorized

CONDA AG, the European-wide crowdinvesting platform and market leader in CEE and DACH, pioneers the implementation of company shares on the Blockchain.

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Paul Poeltner

This is the first digitalization of shares of an Austrian stock corporation. The purpose of this transaction was to link the registered shares issued by CONDA AG with digital tokens and to transfer these to the existing shareholders of the company. CONDA AG is one of the world’s pioneers in Europe, building a platform for issuing security tokens.

The DACH and CEE market leader connects companies in need of financing with small investors on a professional level. At CONDA, innovative startups, established SMEs and real estate projects present themselves and convince the crowd of their growth plans and visions.

Now the two CONDA founders Paul Pöltner and Daniel Horak, with the help of Schönherr lawyers, were able, under the leadership of Dr. Ing. Thomas Kulnigg, to realize one of their visions and develop a platform for companies to implement their shares on the Blockchain in Europe.

Tokens are digital units that are created and issued to shareholders on the basis of a protocol in blockchain (distributed ledger technology) exclusively by CONDA AG. Each token represents one no par value share. When a token is transferred from one shareholder to another, an (inoperable) entry in the blockchain is created; on this basis, an entry is then made in the share register of the company. The transfer of a token is therefore equated with the (conventional) transfer of a share.

From a legal point of view, the transaction was challenging because the question of the admissibility of the segmentation of registered shares in the form of tokens has neither been discussed in literature nor in the high court until now . Furthermore, there are no guidelines on the legal implementation of the “digitization” of shares.

“Together with Schönherr, CONDA has created the basis to offer crowd shares that will then become shareholders in the company, which is a big step in crowd investing and the implementation of security tokens,” said Paul Pöltner, co- founder of CONDA.

CONDA is a crowdinvesting platform founded in Austria that acts as a link between entrepreneurs and investors. In accordance with their motto, “realize great things together,” the platform creates the basis for promising business ideas. In addition, CONDA offers a white label solution for companies, which includes the basic framework of the modern, long-term tested CONDA platform – individually adaptable to the needs of the respective company.

With the CRWD-Network planned in 2019, the two founders Paul Pöltner and Daniel Horak want to set new standards for the processes and procedures in crowdfunding. These should be valid across borders and therefore simplify the possibility of investing in international companies.

With the use of blockchain technology, entrepreneurs will be given the opportunity to present their crowdfunding campaign online across multiple platforms and across borders without much effort, which multiplies the reach of potential investors virtually with just a click. 

Since its foundation in 2013, more than 100 projects with a total volume of over 20 million euros have been financed by more than 10,000 crowd investors.