Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The company behind the increasingly popular Telegram messaging app has raised $850 million in the first part of its initial coin offering (ICO), shows a recently filed SEC notice of securities exemption.
If the data is confirmed, this would be the highers sum raised in an ICO so far.
The documents show that the sale, which started on January 29, has attracted 81 investors, with an average individual investment at just below $10.5 million. It is unclear whether the sum was obtained during a presale or the main funding round itself, but TechCrunch reports that the case is most likely the latter.
Telegram had said it aims to raise $600 million in the presale and a total of $1.2 billion by the end of the ICO. The sum will be used for “the development of the TON Blockchain – a “third generation blockchain”, the development and maintenance of Telegram Messenger and the other purposes described in the offering materials.”
According to the existing regulations, unregistered securities issuers may raise an unlimited amount of money, as long as they restrict the offers to accredited investors, file a report with the SEC and prevent the investors from selling their stakes for a period of either six or 12 months.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, formerly of the popular Russian social network Vkontakte. It is slowly gaining popularity, despite the security flaws and vulnerabilities.
