A few years ago, Backers founder Justin Fox was out with some friends at a pub watching some overtime hockey and noticed how fast paced and exciting the newly implemented 3 on 3 overtime action was… As a typical entrepreneur does, he thought “Hey, what if there was a professional hockey league that played 3 on 3 all the time… 

What if we called it the 3HL…” the next day he incorporated 3HL Inc. and voila the 3HL, 3 on 3 Professional Hockey League was born…

Having started a successful multi-location retail business, and with the excitement and enthusiasm he had for hockey and sports in general… And while others doubted him and thought he was crazy… Seriously who starts their own professional sports league… Justin was confident that he could make it happen, so he got started…

Initially he started a twitter page to gauge the interest of hockey fans, and as you could imagine the response was extremely positive, as everyone loved the 3 on 3 overtime and the thought of a professional hockey league playing only 3 on 3 was very exciting to everyone, and as a result the account and support grew very quickly… It was clear that there was an appetite in the hockey community for the 3HL.

As with all start-ups and for that matter any business, there were many questions… How can we make this happen? How can we get buy in from the local communities? How can we attract top talented players? How can we make this financially viable? How can we get support from investors? How can we get this funded?

The plan was simple… create an opportunity for talented professional Canadian hockey players, to play professionally in Canada… which ironically doesn’t exist! An exciting, entertaining, and unique fan friendly 3 on 3 pro hockey league. Creating a marketing and sponsorship engine that could drive revenues in addition to ticket sales and merchandising opportunities… It’s a simple business model in theory but there are things that need to be in place to make it work… funding & community support are at the top of that list…

So in late 2015, Justin with a business plan in hand and a gleam in his eye, set out to accomplish just that… His goal was to establish relationships with various facilities as identified as possible team locations, and to find potential investors who would be interested in helping the league to get off the ground…

Unfortunately, a little bit to his surprise… the local facilities weren’t as receptive as he would’ve liked and most, if not all of the potential venture capital partners, local business, and pretty much everyone laughed in his face… It seemed that the hockey community was a closed member only group, with outsiders and new ideas, not welcome…

While the fans had shown support and voiced their excitement to see the 3HL, it was still a long way away from becoming a reality… especially if no one was willing to step up and back the league to get it started… And unfortunately it didn’t fit with typical bank loan, and venture capital requirements…

Then, one day, while thinking of the various ways the league could be formed, it dawned on him…

The Green Bay Packers…

The Green Backer Packers are an extremely successful small market professional football team… And they are owned by three hundred and sixty thousand plus (360,000+) individual members of the local community of Green Bay… Essentially their fanbase owns the team, and the management operates it…

That was it… That was how the 3HL would be funded…

It seemed so simple… Sell shares to the supporters and fans from the local communities where the teams will be located, and raise enough capital to get the league off the ground… In doing so the teams/league would get the funding needed to operate, while also securing the buy in from the local fans and supporters… Of course they will come watch the games and support the team, because they are all part owners… It made so much sense…

Unfortunately, due to regulatory restrictions at the time… it was illegal to have more than 50 investors in a private corporation…

But…

There were rumblings of new regulations that would change everything…

New regulations that would enable private corporations to raise capital, by selling equity to the crowd…

Equity Crowdfunding…

And in early 2016 the new regulations came into effect… See 45-108 Crowdfunding Exemption…

Now a private corporation could raise up to $1.5M from an unlimited number of every day investors… Enabling the local community, supporters, and fans to invest in their team… and become owners of their team!!!

Ok… Awesome… Great… Problem Solved…

Wait… Not so fast…

While the regulations had changed…

Unfortunately there was nowhere to actually get it done… as it required a regulated online funding portal to facilitate the transaction… and there were no real viable options available…

So being the entrepreneur that he is, and seeing an opportunity being presented, that could both help him, and have the potential to help countless other entrepreneurs stuck in this same type of predicament…

You know how it goes…

Banks say no… Lenders want your first born… and Sharks can smell blood…

Justin decided that he was going to launch his very own Funding Portal…

And so began the journey towards the launch of Backers…

While the solution seemed simple enough, unfortunately it wasn’t so simple and there were several technological and industry structures that simply prevented a platform for true retail investors to exist… 

Imagine having to pay $40 in fees every year just to hold a $100 investment… Your investment would be gone in less than 3 years just on fees!!!

So in 2018 while searching for a solution to this problem Justin came across something he had seen before, Bitcoin!!! but more importantly the underlying technology that facilitated the transactions of Bitcoin…

Blockchain… Blockchain… Blockchain…

The use of the Blockchain to facilitate the transactions and to store the data on a transactional ledger along with the use of smart contracts to ensure regulatory compliance through the use of Security Tokens was the answer…

The Backers Platform is an end-to-end digital asset investment platform that addresses the recent global regulatory shifts allowing for both accredited high net worth and everyday retail investors to invest in all asset classes, including previously restricted private equity investment opportunities, combined with the evolution of Blockchain and Cryptography allowing for faster, more secure, and reliable transactions with the ability to facilitate ongoing trading and liquidity for investors.

Crypto Stocks, in a broader sense also know as Security Tokens, are essentially digital, tokenized contracts for fractions of any asset that has an underlying value, like real estate, collectibles, or corporate stock. 

A security token, represents the ownership information of the investment product, recorded on the Blockchain. When you invest in traditional stocks, for example, ownership information is written on a document and issued as a digital certificate (e.g. a PDF) with the share registry typically held by a lawyer. 

For Security Tokens, it’s the same process, but recorded on a Blockchain and issued as a token and held in a digital wallet held by the investor with the share ledger on the Blockchain.

The Backers digital asset investment platform with it’s proprietary Initial Backers Offering (IBO) and Securities Tokenizer will significantly improve access to capital for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and early-stage high growth private companies, while also opening the door to new investment opportunities for everyday retail investors to participate in these early stage private equity deals, all on a secure, traceable, immutable, distributed ledger enhancing the safety for investors and visibility for regulators.

And while it has been a long and windy road… as a result of something like backers not existing to help in the process…

Ironically if Backers existed, the process to launch Backers would have been much quicker and easier…

Thankfully the Backers Platform with it’s Regulated Funding Portals enabling private corporations to raise capital by selling equity to the crowd exists today…

So the 3HL, just like you… Can launch an Initial Backers Offering (IBO) to raise capital by selling equity to the crowd on Backers…

That’s Our Story

That’s why we do what we do…

So others just like you can avoid some of those same struggles and get funded a lot sooner…

And position your company in a much stronger way… with the funds and following you need to succeed…

So what are you waiting for… Let’s get started…