727.ventures bridges the gap between tech solutions and business needs in the Polkadot ecosystem
For several years our team, which currently operates under the name 727.ventures, has been developing one of the most up-and-coming blockchain ecosystems, Polkadot.
As we simultaneously focus on technology and attracting business and user attention to the ecosystem, we often wonder how clear and understandable our strategy is to the main Polkadot stakeholders. After all, seeking like-minded individuals and building something together can only be done by clearly understanding each other’s intentions and synchronizing actions.
Therefore, in this article, we will articulate our vision through past actions and intentions for 2023 and 2024. We will do so in a way that allows everyone to see the tapestry of ecosystem development as we see it.
Tech-driven
727.ventures began under the visionary leadership of Markian Ivanichok when we released an important product for the ecosystem. It was OpenBrush, an open-source library that helps developers write smart contracts faster, safer, and easier with ink!. We realized that by resolving our and our partners’ problems and making products that help with that open-sourced, we would help the entire community. That’s how we began our way of creating necessary infrastructure products for the ecosystem.
We continued our way by making key technical contributions like token standards (fungible and non-fungible) PSP22 & PSP34 — standard equivalents for Ethereum’s ERC-20 and ERC-721.
Key ecosystem players assure that these standards enabled the Polkadot ecosystem as a whole. Here are some of the feedback from community members:
- Astar Network: In our business, we use PSP22 and PSP34 as part of our template project to guide developers in creating dApps. We also encourage other projects to adopt these standards as a starting point for interoperability and collaboration.
- SubWallet: In our experience, PSP22 and PSP34 are major step forward for the Substrate ecosystem. They function as the WASM equivalent of ERC tokens and provide a common interface for easy interaction. This not only simplifies the development process, but also promotes collaboration among builders across the ecosystem by sharing the same token standards, which improves compatibility and extensibility.
To continue this strategy we created a portfolio company: Brushfam, that onboards businesses into Polkadot by creating the necessary development infrastructure, auditing, and giving advisory to the development teams. Brushfam makes it easy to resolve real-world problems using Polkadot tech.
Currently, our portfolio company Brushfam has chosen a technological focus in Polkadot — WASM and ink!. At the same time, the Brushfam team is focused on attracting various important stakeholders to the ecosystem: enterprises (through providing blockchain solutions), startups (through project advising and auditing), investors, and promoting Polkadot among the Rust developers communities.
Impact-minded
Indeed, many of our ideas were born while working on how we envision the ecosystem and what solutions will contribute to its development. Along with creating an attractive community for engineers, we understand the importance of mass adoption, including attracting business and investment circles. This is how the idea for the first large-scale conference dedicated to WASM & ink! came about and was executed. Of course, we never had a strategic goal to become an event agency. At the same time, we all know how events strengthen partnerships and help accelerate processes through knowledge sharing in a specific field. So we decided to launch this annual project, which this year will grow into a larger event called Polkadot Wink!, which will include not only a conference but also a big practical part with a hackathon. Last year’s event proved to be an effective tool for gaining exposure and presenting a systemic view of ink!, as well as ready-to-use business tools. This year, after the successful release of ink! 4.0, we hope for even more involvement from various target groups: developers, businesses, investors, and media.
One of the results of last year’s WASM conference was the launch of work on two solutions for the ecosystem: Sol2ink and Typechain-Polkadot. The first is an easy tool for migrating from Solidity to Ink! and Rust by simply inputting the code and getting a working version in ink! in a few seconds. The second is a code generator that improves developers’ experience with frontend usage of ink! smart contracts.
Due to our activity in the ecosystem, our team got support from the key players in the ecosystem. In November 2022, Astar Network and Brushfam announced their partnership to increase the number of dApps deployed in the Polkadot ecosystem in 2023. Astar Network provides developers with true interoperability and infrastructure for creating dApps with EVM and WASM smart contracts. One of their innovative programs to support and grow the developer community is the Build2Earn program, which compensates programmers for the code they write. Now, in May 2023 we get the trust from 4 top ecosystem companies:
But there was a missing part: engineers built for other engineers, and business didn’t see the opportunity of technical solutions laid out in front of them.
Business-oriented
Being passionate about the innovations and tech advantages of the Polkadot, we always felt like something was missing. Talking with VCs and private investors, we often heard similar thoughts: “You are a great ecosystem, but you lack users and orientation towards attracting big businesses.” And every time after these dialogues, we thought — this is exactly what has always pushed us forward, along with technical solutions, to invest in enterprise attraction.
We often demonstrate our technical advantages over other ecosystems. However, this communication is more at the engineering level. And indeed, as statistics show, despite the bearish market, Polkadot remains one of the top ecosystems by developer activity in 2022 and 2023. But we need to pay attention to the big enterprise and find a way to their motives to be with us. That’s why we initiated presenting a whole team of strong Polkadot projects at the Web Summit within our own big booth.
Polkadot stood out due to a strong marketing campaign this year and its 144 m2 Event area with various zones, including a stage. On all days of the event, the total amount of visitors at the booth reached more than 10,000 people. The stage was a success among a more advanced audience, leaders of 17 ecosystem projects with 21 topics for speech. We found out that 226 people, or 24.6% of the leads scanned on the booth, had chief positions: CEOs — 75, Founders — 93, CTOs — 37. It shows that decision makers from web 2 companies have a sheer amount of interest in web 3 and Polkadot in particular.
We expanded our loyal and engaged Polkadot community with over 2900+ tweets, outdoor advertising, and crypto media coverage. But what really attracted potential investors was the impressive technology behind it. Polkadot needed to be more well-known among developers and traditional ventures. And we were happy to have given promising startups the chance to reach a wider community of tech enthusiasts.
Mission-focused
727.ventures strived for a holistic work on the Polkadot ecosystem from day one: we embraced the unknown and kept on connecting, delivering, and nurturing. But our goal remains the same: to contribute to the growth of the Polkadot ecosystem and achieve mass adoption by the community participants. And we believe that combining tech with businesswhile promoting these ideas through events will continue to pave the way toward a more decentralized future. One milestone at a time.
What are our next activities to continue our mission and strategy?
We started working on the new important game-changing product for the ecosystem, Patron.
Patron is your one-stop smart contract manager for Polkadot ecosystem. Nowadays, smart contracts are one of the main instruments of development in the blockchain world. As blockchain itself should be open and reliable, we want to create a registry of all available contracts, so everyone could understand the risks and check whether a specific contract is safe or not. The other side of it — the manager of smart contracts, so every developer could manage his own contracts just like using GitHub. It is very important for users to have a connection with what developers do, so that will increase trust between them.
At the same time, we are pushing forward the process of attracting new businesses and growing existing in the Polkadot ecosystem. That’s why in September 2023, 727.ventures is organizing Polkadot Wink Event.
Polkadot Wink aims to have 3 parts — Conference(online), Hackathon(online and offline + online track) and Pitch Day. It is focused on empowering existing ink! projects and involving new talented developers & business leaders in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Alongside, particularly the 2nd hackathon track aims to unveil blockchain/Polkadot potential to Ukraine’s big/middle enterprises and try to resolve their business problems using blockchain technology. On the 1st hackathon track, we plan to empower existing ink! projects by providing deep technical support, giving product, financial & marketing lectures, and connecting them to VCs on dedicated Pitch Day.
Both conference and hackathon are focused on utilizing Wasm ink! smart contracts and Polkadot’s unique technology by empowering existing projects and attracting enterprises from the non-web3 world.
Currently, the team at 727.ventures independently implements development strategies within the part of the ecosystem where we see ourselves as competent, both through our own portfolio of companies. This article serves as a signal to partner with those who share a similar perspective because, if we consider Polkadot as a city, building it quickly can only be achieved by joining forces with key players.
Our team is open to collaborating with developer teams, enterprises seeking blockchain implementation solutions, investment communities looking for promising company portfolios to invest in, and anyone who is passionate about the philosophy of decentralization and Web3. Together we will move faster and achieve bigger things!
