Thank you for reading this piece. If you LOVE this article, you can send a tip to Cryptojeter.eth (my ETH address)! Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter and retweet this post!

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***Views are my own***

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan are all names that many people think of as investment banks. These institutions have been strongholds of the global financial system for generations and have thrived in a space that has been deprived of disruption. However, with the emergence of cryptocurrencies, it would only make sense that new players would take on the role of investment banks in the new decentralized financial system. Ondo Finance was created to fill this gap in decentralized finance (DeFi).

Ondo was founded by Nathan Allman (CEO) and Pinku Surana(fmr. CTO) in 2021. Nathan is a Goldman Sachs alum who also had experiences at a reputable financial company, Prospect Capital with an educational background from Brown University. The rest of the leadership team is composed of former founders, and partners at name brand VC shops, with educational backgrounds from very reputable institutions. Ondo’s team is very technical as the company’s members have expertise surrounding machine learning, and the blockchain. The firm’s idea for disrupting the investment banking arena, plus having a strong team led Ondo to recently raise 20 million dollars from investors such as Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and others.

According to the company website, “Ondo Finance is an open, permissionless, decentralized investment bank. Ondo's core business is to service and connect various stakeholders in the emerging DeFi ecosystem -- including DAOs and increasingly institutional and mainstream retail investors -- through fully on-chain services.” The company’s product offerings include bundling and unbundling DeFi services from various protocols currently and many blockchains in the future.

The need for a decentralized investment came from the lack of transparency and the ultra-high barrier to entry for investors to engage with these types of investment products. Systematically, investment banking is very manual, expensive, and gate keeps offerings such as structured products, direct listings, market making, and asset management for the one percent of investors and companies. Furthermore, the tables where these deals are made are kept in secrecy and they are made by the largest financial institutions, which sometimes have questionable risk management practices. With this in mind, Ondo finance’s goal is to bring customized financial products and services to all investors and companies.

Ondo Finance’s team recognized trends that will make their stick in the evolving DeFi space. First, there are many layer one (L1) protocols that are vying for the adoption of DeFi developers. Protocols such as Avalanche and Solana come to mind as they are designed with high transaction speeds as a primary focal point. Secondly, Ondo finance recognized that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) are growing in number, and a subset of the market will need similar services needed by traditional corporations that are provided by investment banks. Since DAOs can be created as startups, with the intention to be used to deploy capital, and for other functions, Ondo can provide these organizations with services to help DAOs raise funds, manage their treasuries, and liquidation events. Thirdly, retail investors are becoming more aware of private assets and the role of these traditional investment institutions in the economy. Thus, retail investor’s growing interest to deploy capital in the DeFi space provides a market opportunity for Ondo to service its customers by offering guidance on portfolio construction with appropriate risk exposure.

Ondo is a very disruptive product and seems to be well planned and a proactive solution that its customers such as DAOs will need to appropriately scale. It is also providing opportunities for retail investors to make investments with similar return profiles as their institutional counterparts. As Ondo Finance grows, it will catch the attention of financial titans who will be curious about how the platform will spark competition within the investment banks. Once Ondo and its competitors have proven adoption by retail investors and businesses, these traditional institutions will need software in-house to serve their client’s needs.

As mentioned above, Ondo’s functionality should convert money from conscious investors into well defined portfolios. With enough traction, look for Ondo to be an acquisition target by traditional finance players in the future. Currently, the company should focus on a couple of things. First, Ondo needs to attract new users to the platform. Secondly, Ondo needs to ensure that all users, including those from countries with higher regulatory scrutiny, can benefit from these offerings. Ondo will need to educate their target users on the traditional investment banking space, DeFi, and how to use Ondo to receive similar returns.

Attracting new users to Ondo will require a lot of marketing prowess from the team. Ondo has a couple of customer segments, retail investors, and DAOs. Both of these investors will need to be pitched on return potential, especially the retail investors, who want to see exponential returns. With regard to the DAO audience, Ondo should also pitch the value that their products can professionalize DAOs, eventually placing them with a prestige similar to the TradFi incumbents.

It is very difficult to be a finance-focused organization and not allow US investors to invest in Ondo. Unfortunately, Ondo’s CoinList offering did not include investors from the United States. It is simple to understand why an incident with the SEC could delegitimize the business. However, if Ondo is steadfast in its mission of providing investment banking-type products to all investors, the company will need to work with regulators to offer products that the US Market can participate in.

Moreover, the DeFi segment in web3 is an extremely nascent space, which means that Ondo will need resources that can educate retail investors. The popularity of DAOs has also increased, which means that there is a higher demand for knowledge about how these entities function as well as how they can be used for multiple use cases. Moreover, Ondo Finance will need to demystify the investment banking industry for the retail investors and entities that they plan to have on the blockchain. Ultimately, if Ondo can develop a strong learning and development team that deploys great content, they can be a force that appears friendly to the retail investor and web3 enthusiasts by making investment banking more transparent. Additionally, the content they create could teach the necessary fundamentals of web3 and TradFi required to use Ondo to its greatest capabilities.

Ondo Finance is a disruptive offering that will spur competition from TradFi investment banks. The incumbent banks will notice this disruption, which will create immediate exit opportunities for Ondo. Ondo Finance could also penetrate so much of the DeFi investment banking market share that partnerships with TradFi incumbents become inevitable, creating a sustainable revenue stream for years to come. Although collaboration with TradFi entities may be appealing, Ondo is aiming to provide this level of investment services to all investors and crypto-native entities. Therefore, strong marketing, an intuitive user experience, and education will be essential to the growth and adoption of the project. With Ondo’s team and backing from investors such as Founder’s Fund and Pantera Capital, it will be interesting to follow the progress of Ondo.

https://twitter.com/CryptoJeter/status/1528095924643315720?s=20&t=Zx0Ie92PQrJVnfm8CuyQMg

Thank you for reading this piece. Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter and retweet this post! If you LOVE this article, you can send a tip to Cryptojeter.eth! Feel free to shoot me a DM as I love meeting new folks!

Sources:

https://docs.ondo.finance/

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/27/ondo-defi-decentralized-crypto-investment-bank-series-a/

** Thank you for reading this piece. Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter. Feel free to shoot me a DM as I love meeting new folks! Views are my own!

**

Thank you for reading this piece. If you LOVE this article, you can send a tip to Cryptojeter.eth (my ETH address)! Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter and retweet this post!

https://twitter.com/CryptoJeter/status/1528095924643315720?s=20&t=Zx0Ie92PQrJVnfm8CuyQMg

Feel free to shoot me a DM as I love meeting new folks! Thank you for the support!

***Views are my own***

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan are all names that many people think of as investment banks. These institutions have been strongholds of the global financial system for generations and have thrived in a space that has been deprived of disruption. However, with the emergence of cryptocurrencies, it would only make sense that new players would take on the role of investment banks in the new decentralized financial system. Ondo Finance was created to fill this gap in decentralized finance (DeFi).

Ondo was founded by Nathan Allman (CEO) and Pinku Surana(fmr. CTO) in 2021. Nathan is a Goldman Sachs alum who also had experiences at a reputable financial company, Prospect Capital with an educational background from Brown University. The rest of the leadership team is composed of former founders, and partners at name brand VC shops, with educational backgrounds from very reputable institutions. Ondo’s team is very technical as the company’s members have expertise surrounding machine learning, and the blockchain. The firm’s idea for disrupting the investment banking arena, plus having a strong team led Ondo to recently raise 20 million dollars from investors such as Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and others.

According to the company website, “Ondo Finance is an open, permissionless, decentralized investment bank. Ondo's core business is to service and connect various stakeholders in the emerging DeFi ecosystem -- including DAOs and increasingly institutional and mainstream retail investors -- through fully on-chain services.” The company’s product offerings include bundling and unbundling DeFi services from various protocols currently and many blockchains in the future.

The need for a decentralized investment came from the lack of transparency and the ultra-high barrier to entry for investors to engage with these types of investment products. Systematically, investment banking is very manual, expensive, and gate keeps offerings such as structured products, direct listings, market making, and asset management for the one percent of investors and companies. Furthermore, the tables where these deals are made are kept in secrecy and they are made by the largest financial institutions, which sometimes have questionable risk management practices. With this in mind, Ondo finance’s goal is to bring customized financial products and services to all investors and companies.

Ondo Finance’s team recognized trends that will make their stick in the evolving DeFi space. First, there are many layer one (L1) protocols that are vying for the adoption of DeFi developers. Protocols such as Avalanche and Solana come to mind as they are designed with high transaction speeds as a primary focal point. Secondly, Ondo finance recognized that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) are growing in number, and a subset of the market will need similar services needed by traditional corporations that are provided by investment banks. Since DAOs can be created as startups, with the intention to be used to deploy capital, and for other functions, Ondo can provide these organizations with services to help DAOs raise funds, manage their treasuries, and liquidation events. Thirdly, retail investors are becoming more aware of private assets and the role of these traditional investment institutions in the economy. Thus, retail investor’s growing interest to deploy capital in the DeFi space provides a market opportunity for Ondo to service its customers by offering guidance on portfolio construction with appropriate risk exposure.

Ondo is a very disruptive product and seems to be well planned and a proactive solution that its customers such as DAOs will need to appropriately scale. It is also providing opportunities for retail investors to make investments with similar return profiles as their institutional counterparts. As Ondo Finance grows, it will catch the attention of financial titans who will be curious about how the platform will spark competition within the investment banks. Once Ondo and its competitors have proven adoption by retail investors and businesses, these traditional institutions will need software in-house to serve their client’s needs.

As mentioned above, Ondo’s functionality should convert money from conscious investors into well defined portfolios. With enough traction, look for Ondo to be an acquisition target by traditional finance players in the future. Currently, the company should focus on a couple of things. First, Ondo needs to attract new users to the platform. Secondly, Ondo needs to ensure that all users, including those from countries with higher regulatory scrutiny, can benefit from these offerings. Ondo will need to educate their target users on the traditional investment banking space, DeFi, and how to use Ondo to receive similar returns.

Attracting new users to Ondo will require a lot of marketing prowess from the team. Ondo has a couple of customer segments, retail investors, and DAOs. Both of these investors will need to be pitched on return potential, especially the retail investors, who want to see exponential returns. With regard to the DAO audience, Ondo should also pitch the value that their products can professionalize DAOs, eventually placing them with a prestige similar to the TradFi incumbents.

It is very difficult to be a finance-focused organization and not allow US investors to invest in Ondo. Unfortunately, Ondo’s CoinList offering did not include investors from the United States. It is simple to understand why an incident with the SEC could delegitimize the business. However, if Ondo is steadfast in its mission of providing investment banking-type products to all investors, the company will need to work with regulators to offer products that the US Market can participate in.

Moreover, the DeFi segment in web3 is an extremely nascent space, which means that Ondo will need resources that can educate retail investors. The popularity of DAOs has also increased, which means that there is a higher demand for knowledge about how these entities function as well as how they can be used for multiple use cases. Moreover, Ondo Finance will need to demystify the investment banking industry for the retail investors and entities that they plan to have on the blockchain. Ultimately, if Ondo can develop a strong learning and development team that deploys great content, they can be a force that appears friendly to the retail investor and web3 enthusiasts by making investment banking more transparent. Additionally, the content they create could teach the necessary fundamentals of web3 and TradFi required to use Ondo to its greatest capabilities.

Ondo Finance is a disruptive offering that will spur competition from TradFi investment banks. The incumbent banks will notice this disruption, which will create immediate exit opportunities for Ondo. Ondo Finance could also penetrate so much of the DeFi investment banking market share that partnerships with TradFi incumbents become inevitable, creating a sustainable revenue stream for years to come. Although collaboration with TradFi entities may be appealing, Ondo is aiming to provide this level of investment services to all investors and crypto-native entities. Therefore, strong marketing, an intuitive user experience, and education will be essential to the growth and adoption of the project. With Ondo’s team and backing from investors such as Founder’s Fund and Pantera Capital, it will be interesting to follow the progress of Ondo.

https://twitter.com/CryptoJeter/status/1528095924643315720?s=20&t=Zx0Ie92PQrJVnfm8CuyQMg

Thank you for reading this piece. Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter and retweet this post! If you LOVE this article, you can send a tip to Cryptojeter.eth! Feel free to shoot me a DM as I love meeting new folks!

Sources:

https://docs.ondo.finance/

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/27/ondo-defi-decentralized-crypto-investment-bank-series-a/

** Thank you for reading this piece. Follow me on Twitter @CryptoJeter. Feel free to shoot me a DM as I love meeting new folks! Views are my own!

**