RChain invested $35M + $5.3M in go-to-market dApps with no return

[dckc]

Any new developers in the RChain community deserve to know some history about funding dApp development.

Section 11) Use of Proceeds from the August 29, 2017 RChain Whitepaper (78b1980) called for "Support the Dev. of Key dApps to operate on RChain Blockchain" in the amount of $500,000 to $2,500,000 depending on how much was raised.

Supporting the dApp development community, having dApps running on the RChain immediately upon launch of Mercury is critical to our success. We intend to assist in the incubation and to provide seed capital for the development of a suite of key dApps.

Consequently, a strategic partnership with ventures was executed with an "initial total net asset value of $35,000,000.00 USD" (authorized in the 2017-12-28 board meeting). And a strategic partnership with Pithia was executed with a "market value of approximately $5.3 million USD" (authorized in the 2018-05-28 board meeting).

The progress of the strategic partnerships in recruiting "portfolio companies" to develop dApps was discussed at various community debriefs; for example:

• August 1st 2018 - Community Debrief 88 Reflective: Portfolio Companies, Asia trip, Deal Day Highlights, Washington Senators Meetup, Validator Program
• September 12th 2018 - Community Debrief 94 Pithia: 3 portfolio companies, connecting German Coop with resources we've invested in, blockchain coalition event coming up

At some point, the partnerships became strained. Minutes of the 2018-04-06 the board meeting show

... the Cooperative has received comments from several members who have expressed concerns with Reflective Ventures

and in the 2018-05-01 board meeting:

the Cooperative has received input from the community expressing concerns about Pithia’s activities in structuring its fund.

At some point between web site commit ea6ac81 on Dec 17, 2018 and commit c1fdaee on Sep 14, 2020, the list of portfolio companies was removed from the RChain coop web site altogether.

No working dApps have been announced as a result of this investment.

As far as I know, no dApps resulting from this investment are expected.

[dckc]

Contrast this with the results of the web3 foundation grants program.