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Sirin Labs, the startup of Moshe Hogeg, which will start selling the blockchain phone it has developed, is now considering abandoning the production of phones and focusing on providing software to other phone manufacturers, according to an interview given to Hogeg last Thursday from "Bloomberg".
Sirin Labs raised $ 158 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in December 2017, after raising $ 97 million from investors. The company has raised a total of $ 255 million. At the end of November, Sirin Labs launched his Finney phone at a gala event in Barcelona with footballer Lionel Messi, presented as "ambassador of the Sirin Labs brand", as reported by "Globes". Hogeg told Bloomberg, however, that the company had enough money to continue operating for only 6-12 months.
Sirin Labs today confirmed to "Globes" that Hogeg had made these statements to "Bloomberg", but added that since ICO had been in ether, the digital currency of Ethererum, and the price of ether was precipitated this year, the assumption that the money would be enough to run the business for 6-12 months was reasonable.
The company added that it had focused on developing its Sirin OS telephone operating system, in addition to its blockchain phone, and had already spoken with a major telephone manufacturer on the use of this software.
Sirin Labs said, "Sirin Labs has raised over 200,000 ethers with a current value of $ 16 million, and the company is managing its risks wisely and correctly, given the state of the market, converting enough currency for its development needs. agreed on the fact that the amount raised in the market state a year ago was not enough to develop a smartphone: we still have a product we are very proud of, we believe in our ability to make the company profitable and we are aware that this entails a great challenge in the current state of the market.
"As for the quote quoted on another media, it refers to a specific scenario that we have been asked about for which there are no sales, in which case the company will concentrate on selling software for other phones. this is the situation at the moment, we have orders for 100,000 devices only from distributors: as announced before and at the time of launch, selling software is part of our vision and the company's business model, along with device sales. "
Temporary liquidator for Hogeg & # 39; s invest.com
The problems of Hogeg's startup blockchain should not be surprising, given the state of the digital currencies market in recent months. The market price of bitcoin, the leading digital currency, fell to a minimum of 14 months of $ 3,500, and lost another 16% last week, after losing 37% in November. The total market value of cryptocurrencies, of which bitcoin accounts for 55%, is currently $ 110 billion, after falling from a peak of $ 831 billion in January 2018.
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The price of ether, the currency in which Sirin Labs raised $ 158 million from investors a year ago, fell by 21% from last week, placing 93% below its January peak. The downward trend also reached the digital currency of Sirin Labs, which lost 40% last week and now falls by 95% from the start of this year.
What Hogeg told "Bloomberg", however, will not surprise anyone following his conduct in the last year. Hogeg, 37, recently became the owner of the Beitar Jerusalem football team, after buying it from Eli Tabib in August for 26 million NIS. Several weeks before, Hogeg paid the business man Ilan Ben-Dov $ 19 million for a batch of five dunams (1.25 acres) to Kfar Shmaryahu, paying 15% of the purchase price in bitcoin.
Hogeg manages the investment company Singulariteam, which he founded together with the Kazakh millionaire Kenges Rakishev. In the last two years, Singulariteam has invested in several blockchain startups and Hogeg has made no secret of his enthusiasm for this sector. As reported in "Globes", a temporary liquidator of the law firm Yigal Arnon was appointed two weeks ago for one of them, invest.com. Last Thursday, invest.com petitioned the district court in Tel Aviv to annul the decision to appoint a temporary liquidator. 17 shareholders of the AnyOption company, which sells binary options and were acquired by invest.com, presented the petition for the appointment of a temporary liquidator.
Sirin Labs and invest.com are not Hogeg's first startups. Mobli, which he founded in 2010, closed in 2017 after collecting $ 86 million to develop a photo-sharing app. The Mobli patent was sold to Snapchat for $ 7.7 million.
The Finney phone is the second developed by Sirin Labs after the launch of Solarin, which has been described as the safest smartphone in the world. Solarin, which was priced at $ 15,000, was a commercial failure.
Sirin Labs rated its new blockchain phone for $ 999, but it was available on the company's website for $ 899 soon after its launch in late November. According to "Bloomberg", the new phone may not survive long in the market.
Published by Globes, Israeli economic news – it.globes.co.il – December 9th 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018
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