Russian Politician and Billionaire Boris Titov has signed an agreement with Sasha Ivanov, CEO of Waves Platform, to create an Initial Coin Offering incubator. The new incubator has been entitled “People of Growth” and is described as a vehicle to assist entrepreneurs and growing companies to leverage the Waves platform and ICOs.
Titov, who is close to Vladimir Putin, is a major shareholder in Solvalab Group. He is also the founder and leader of the “Party of Growth” in Russia. Titov reportedly attended the Trump Administration inaugural. In 2012, Titov was authorized by Putin to protect the rights of entrepreneurs.
Waves said that while there have been a large number of crowdfunding success stories in the blockchain space in recent months, with significant amounts of money raised, the goal of “People of Growth” — is to help companies in the real economy to leverage the benefits of ICOs.
The cooperation between Titov and Waves was said to have begun 6 months ago, when the Upcoin token was launched as a tool for the Party of Growth. Party of Growth is a minority political party with a strong base of grassroots activists. Upcoin, a token hosted on the Waves network, apparently was integrated into a loyalty program that rewarded party supporters for their work assisting Party of Growth.
Upcoin also is said to have the distinction of being the world’s first ever blockchain social project.
Waves said that traditional loans are typically expensive and difficult to secure in Russia but businesses have proven interested in ICOs as a new vehicle for raising seed funding and to accelerate the launch of new business ideas.
“We’re really happy to sign this agreement with Boris,” stated Waves CEO Sasha Ivanov. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to push blockchain adoption to a far wider community than the traditional crypto crowd, which of course has always been our vision for Waves. We always intended to be “Blockchain for the people” and this is another great step forward in that direction.”
The Waves Platform completed its own ICO in June 2016, raising more than $16 million (30,000 BTC).