Ambrosus — ICO Review

Token: AMB

ICO timeline: Started on September 13th / end: October 11th

Project website: https://ambrosus.com/

“We envision a system of interconnected quality assurance sensors that can reliably record the entire history of a product”. Ambrosus whitepaper

TOTAL 14.5/ 25

Summary: Very ambitious — yet interesting project — that has a real disruptive potential for supply-chain sector, from local producers to end users, with a social aspect which deserves to be mentioned. A strong team as well as a well-structured roadmap with ambitious goals. Our final opinion is still very conservative considering the huge uncertainty related to the ambition/horizon of the project, the likely legal constraints to scale, the number of assets to build to succeed in developing a fully-operational ecosystem, as well as the a priori non-educated target. Plus, the ICO conditions are quite deceiving at the moment.

1 Business opportunity: 3/5

Description: Blockchain-based ecosystem targeting supply-chain industry with an emphasis on “life-essential products” (food and pharmaceuticals in particular). Ambition is to provide transparency across supply-chains flows, ensure that quality standards are met for any product tracked by the network, as well as guarantee that data is up-to-date and freely accessible by interested parties. By providing a solution to trust issues along global supply chains, from producers to end users, Ambrosus tackle a critical real-world, but very complex issue.

Baby food or fish products are showcased as for marketing purposes by Ambrosus. As such, they show how a wholesale marketplace for food could benefit from Ambrosus ecosystem; one could buy a fish online, with detailed info (provenance etc.) and pay via Parity in ETH (Parity being a strategic partner). If those use cases seem legit — anyone is looking for non-contaminated/fresh/labeled food — , it is hard to anticipate an important adoption at this stage. End users expressing real concerns for food quality might be more sensitive to local/regional products and fair trade aspects than “tech-backed” products. On the other side, this could a major improvement for many supply-chain actors, at all stages of the chain, that would be able to make sure their products are treated the right way as well as mitigate any issue using smart contracts. Benefits of a blockchain are evident here, but target is unclear.

Competition: Ambrosus has a bunch of competitors, while the project seems to be the most ambitious amongst all (at least, the most disruptive from a technical standpoint): Provenance, Hyperledger (IBM), Stratis, WaBi.

2Technology: 3/5

https://ambrosus.com/assets/Ambrosus-White-Paper-V8-1.pdf

Two main layers to consider for this project:

• Sensors (hardware)

Ambrosus team is working on developing hardware sensors that feature plug-and-play compatibility with their blockchain network (see below). It will allow a real-time control of products attributes and environment. Personalized tag methods as well as food grade tracers, biosensors and anti-tampering mechanisms are part of the roadmap. Even if this “Sensors” part of the project is partly backed by Swiss Authorities, it is still very ambitious and R&D consuming. Long-term horizon in any case for a full solution to be operational.

• A blockchain protocol

To protect the integrity, verifiability and availability of data generated by sensors. Then, smart contracts could be used to provide automated governance of supply chains and manage commercial relationships between interested parties (or disputes). Optional dynamic pricing could be also implemented.

Protocol works on top of Ethereum platform at the moment. Ambition is to build a private Ambrosus blockchain that will be accessible to anyone willing to use the network.

Amber token: ERC-20 compliant, Amber tokens underpin all transactions within Ambrosus network. The token is used to bind data which is continuously generated/collected through the network with related items. Plus, it is also used to carry out transfers of value within the ecosystem (see schema below, from Ambrosus whitepaper). At the end of the cycle, tokens are burned.

We remain skeptical on token specifics. This “bonded” token derives its value from users of the network willing to track products (not end users accessing final information). When circulating through the network, tokens might not be transferable which undermines its liquidity on the market. If the token has a real technical utility rather than being a stock equivalent, we still strive to size the demand for such token from a technical standpoint considering specifics of supply-chain stakeholders.

Dense whitepaper, well structured and marketed alongside technical papers and various use cases available on their website.

3Team: 3.5/5

Sounds pretty good overall, with experienced profiles, from blockchain/encryption profiles to sensors specialists. CEO, Angel Versetti, has an interesting background (Cambridge, SciencePo) with various — but short — experiences (United Nations, World Resources Forum, Bloomberg, …).

On the partners/advisors side, we cannot omit that Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum is part of them, among other quite strong profiles. We notice that a lot — LOT — of supporters and press credentials are showcased on the website, which is reassuring and worrisome at the same time.

Good team, but nothing “big” on their track-record as far as we know.

4ICO details: 1/5

AMBER token (Ticker: AMB)

ICO timeline: Started on September 13th / end: October 11th

Hard cap: CHF 100M (or c. EUR 85M) / availability: 40% tokens

Valorization: CHF 250M (or c. EUR 210M)

Valorization seems too high for a project with this ambition and uncertainty at this stage (even if a “demo” has already been developed). Modem (direct competitor) has a hard cap of c. USD 30M). As of today, c. EUR 26M raised (or 30%), which is not a good point.

5Community & Communication: 4/5

Qui a buzz around the project, backed by a strong whitepaper, short demo videos and a lot of press. Good communication skills overall.

Influence:

• Linkedin: 277
• Twitter: 3850 +
• Reddit: 291 subs.
• Telegram: 1995 members
• Fb: 1644 likes
• Youtube: 8500+ views on most popular videos (among 3 only)
• Bitcointalk: 45 pages!
• Pretty nice blog — https://blog.ambrosus.com/

6Verdict:

Perspective:

• Short-term: Neutral/Negative
• Long-term: Neutral (to be continued)

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