Explorie began as a ardour mission by SMU college students Weng Haishi (College of Social Sciences), Jonathan Chow (College of Computing and Info Methods) and Slevin Chua (Yong Pung How College of Legislation). It’s a Non-fungible Token (NFT) platform that serves as a advertising device for Small and Medium Enterprises, with related workings because the viral sport “Pokémon GO”. Companies can concern geo-tagged NFTs to appeal to customers to their retailer, and NFTs could be in the type of vouchers, collectibles, and digital artwork. The thought happened when the crew realised that many companies had been struggling by way of the pandemic.
In July this yr, the crew took half in Hack Cardano, a hackathon organised by the launchpad, Cardstarter which goals to incubate revolutionary tasks constructed on the Cardano blockchain. Groups of all sizes, nationalities and expertise competed for the grand prize of US$100,000 in seed funding, in addition to a possibility to be incubated in the Cardstarter accelerator program. Over 50 groups participated in the occasion, with finalists from the USA, Europe, South East Asia and Africa.
Team member, Weng Haishi mentioned, “We determined to participate in this occasion as a result of the crew are long run believers of the Cardano blockchain. Its ethos of “making the world work higher for all” resonates with the crew.”
The judging course of consisted of three phases, the primary being ideation. The crew introduced a pitch deck detailing their enterprise concept, implementation course of, finance and advertising plans. The highest eleven groups proceeded to the second stage; technical implementation. They submitted a whitepaper detailing the technical structure, minting means of NFTs in addition to good contract particulars. Six finalist groups had been chosen for the ultimate stage the place they introduced their tasks to the judges and answered technical questions.
After an intense month of coding, presenting and writing, Explorie emerged the champion of Hack Cardano 2021.
Haishi mentioned, “We consider that our win could be attributed to the novelty of the thought, technical information of the crew, in addition to sound advertising and finance plans. All through the method, we had been in a position to apply information gained in SMU to craft our Minimal Viable Product (MVP). One vital module can be MGMT218: Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Creation. We learnt key theories such because the “chicken in hand” precept in addition to steps to making a viable marketing strategy. In MKTG 207: Advertising and marketing Technique, we learnt the steps to making a synergistic advertising plan.”
Shifting ahead, the crew is conducting market analysis and has rebranded “Explorie” to “Catch”. They’re additionally liaising with Cardstarter to elevate an extra US$1.2 million by way of non-public and public gross sales. The funds raised can be used to refine their MVP, provoke advertising campaigns in addition to present liquidity throughout Decentralised Alternate (DEX) itemizing. The “Catch” app is scheduled to be launched in Q1 2022.
