In Brief:
- Fantasy startup investmentor announced it would temporarily shut down, and will reimbursing users who bought shares.
- The platform allowed users to bid on auctions of fake NFT shares of real startups
- The founders said that they had “underestimated the legal complexities” with selling fake shares of real startups
Visionrare, which launched a marketplace for “fantasy startup investments,” 24 hours ago, announced it would temporarily shut down. It will reimburse users who bought shares and relaunching them as a free game soon.
A user could bid on fake NFT stock auctions from real startups, generating a quasi-portfolio that could be used to play a fantasy sports league about who could build the most “profitable” portfolio.
As it turns out they did not have the permission of most of the startups in which they were selling synthetic stocks.
According to a disclaimer posted on the company’s auction market this morning, the company’s founders had not anticipated legal complexities associated with selling shares in real startups, so the market is temporarily closed and users will be reimbursed even as their pivot is planned.
Since Visionrare launched yesterday, the platform and its founders have received considerable pushback, and several tech investors and entrepreneurs have wondered if the platform is legal, or whether it is secure.
As a platform, Visionrare will have to rethink how it is fundamentally structured. Founders would like to invest in fantasy startups, but it’s not quite done yet.
“In the coming days, we will relaunch Visionrare as a completely free-to-play game. All players start with a fixed amount of credits that they can use to build their startup portfolio, and they can compete in leagues based on how well their portfolios perform in the real world. Down the line, we’ll figure out if and how we can add a financial element again,” says the founder.
