Telegram, the messaging service that planned what may be the biggest ICO last week concluded a private sale which, according to reports raised $850 million. This week, reports from The Verge has revealed that there is another round of private pre-sale that is scheduled to commence which is aimed at another $850 million.
Based on required submissions by ICOs, the Telegram private pre-sale has some big investors such as Sequoia Capital and Benchmark, who had earlier indicated interest in the ICO among the buyers of the Gram token. The same report indicated that the pre-sale exceeded its benchmark. The company has now scheduled another pre-sale for another $850 million, thereby becoming the highest earning ICO till date.
Telegram crowdsale subscribers had received notifications about the second upcoming private sale last week. Crypto observers are of the opinion that with the second sale, the network would still easily meet their target again as investor confidence is high. The Telegram Open Network, the blockhain project which the company plans to build has generated a lot of buzz and the ICO is expected to be over subscribed.
With another pre-sale of same target, the ICO would have made $1.7 billion, yet there is no indication exactly how much the project expects to raise.
Considering that the main crowdsale has not been launched, the Telegram ICO may become the highest grossing ICO, even more than the Venezuelan Petro which targets $5 billion.
Telegram has 90 million subscribers and has become the platform of choice for initial coin offering promotions.
The uncertainty surrounding how much the Telegram ICO intends to raise was accentuated by the ICO marketing consultants emails which offered different ranges of discount for the first private pre-sale. According to Carlo Mosquera of Solidus Capital, their company received invitation to join the first pre-sale a month ago from three different intermediaries but wouldn’t participate in the offer because they were not harmonized. The offers had discounts ranging from 30 percent to 80 percent for the same pre-ICO. He said that they were not notified of the latest pre-sale.
Pre-sales are drivers of ICOs these days. It is not surprising that Telegram is taking full advantage of it. Meeting their target in the first private pre-ICO in such a short period is indicative of high interest from investors. The second phase meeting its target should not really be a surprise because the company already has what it takes to launch the biggest ICO.
