Fundraising Campaigns in a Digital Economy: Lessons from a Swiss Synthetic Diamond Venture's Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

Abstract

Ten years ago, Pascal Gallo, a French researcher with a fresh doctorate in physics from Toulouse University embarked on a new journey at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). During his postdoctorate studies, he began the first experiments on technologies related to growing synthetic diamonds. Later, in 2015, he founded LakeDiamond, a start-up located at the EPFL Innovation Park specializing in lab-grown diamonds. According to LakeDiamond, these lab-grown diamonds have unique properties. Among others, they are “transparent to light, conductors of heat, eco-friendly, chemically inert, hard and elastic and biocompatible” (LakeDiamond – Summary fact sheet, October 2018), a set of characteristics that sounds extraordinary.