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Suretly raises $350,000 in pre-ICO round

In late June, the company plans an ICO of up to $5 million

The Russian crowdvouching platform, Suretly, needed only two days (May 16-17) to raise approximately $350,000 from 275 investors in 20 countries. The investment is part of a pre-ICO (Initial Coin Offering), and was raised in the form of preSUR tokens that will be exchanged for SUR tokens with a coefficient of 1:2. The starting price of each SUR token will be 0.1 ETH (about $19 USD at rates as of May 24).

At the end of June, Suretly, which is a Russian fintech startup with offices in Moscow and New York, plans to conduct an ICO round expected to be worth between $1.5 million and $5 million. It will issue SUR tokens to be backed by the company’s shares.

Eugene Lobachev, Suretly’s founder

“Any type of investment is a kind of nitrogen for acceleration,” said Eugene Lobachev, Suretly’s founder. “With this new investment, we will be able to significantly expand the number of staff, and spend more money on marketing and more detailed study of legal nuances in different countries. In addition, this investment will allow us to begin work on entering the market of more countries.”

Suretly is the first crowdvouching platform that allows people to buy or sell micro suretyships – agreements that involve a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower. Suretly has been dubbed “tinder for microloans.” The loans are issued by microfinance organizations, and users who “like” a potential borrower can either earn or lose money depending on whether those for whom they vouched return the loan.

A stranger’s photograph appears on your smartphone screen, and you decide whether to give a loan or not. The money is not yours, but instead is provided by microfinance organizations. A decision is made just like on Tinder: right swipe for Yes, and left swipe for No. Suretly is geared exclusively to short-term loans of up to one month; in other words, those with the highest interest.

“Our startup solves two problems at once: we give a financial instrument for short-term investments of small funds, and also we give the opportunity to have a short-term microloan cheaper than before to subprime borrowers,” said Lobachev. “The demand for such loans is huge and the reduced interest rate will unequivocally arouse the interest for borrowers. In addition, as surveys of several banks have shown, there is large unmet demand for small short-term investments.”

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