Ukrainian Real Agriculture Business Gets Tokenized: Interview With AgroGloryTime CEO
- Many enterprises in the real sector face specific problems amid the ongoing economic turbulence.
- CEO of AgroGloryTime, Daria Novgorodkina, sits down to talk about the firm she represents.
- AgroGloryTime is a Ukrainian agriculture holding, which introduced a blockchain-based funds attraction model.
The successful attraction of investments is one of the key factors contributing to the development and scaling of the business. Considering the ongoing period of economic turbulence, many enterprises in the real sector are facing specific problems on this path. The most obvious option — attracting borrowed bank funds — often turns out to be a rather risky tool since it imposes a financial liability burden on the borrower.
The lack of confidence in stable demand, caused by a slowdown in the economic development rates in many advanced countries, forces business owners to take an increasingly balanced approach to assess potential risks.
However, today’s speaker, Daria Novgorodkina, does not share the common pessimism. The company she speaks for, AgroGloryTime, is a Ukrainian major agriculture holding, which makes their business to be on the ground regarding the market perspective, considering the looming world food crisis. Realizing the growth opportunities and the high social responsibility entrusted to food producers, Novgorodkina, as the head of the enterprise, logically faced the challenge of production expansion.
Instead of applying for a bank loan, they’ve developed a tokenization model for their running $50 million business, which aims at direct funds attraction. Their native token, AGTI, not only serves as an investable asset but provides its holders with a guaranteed share in the company’s profits. Since AGTI is pegged to the company’s real assets, its investors receive quarterly payments in the amount of their participation share. And these payments, according to the AgroGloryTime economic model, provide a total return of at least 25% per annum.
Read the whole interview with Daria Novgorodkina below.
Q. Looking through the project documentation, I see there are no tokens dedicated to the team. How do you plan to earn in this case?
Let me start with the essential remark that AgroGloryTime is an already launched agricultural business that consistently generates income. At the time of issuing the AGTI token, our capitalization already exceeded $50 million. The company is officially incorporated at the location of its land assets in Ukraine, with its shares publicly circulating. As AGTI is backed with a fixed equivalent of company shares, we guarantee its holders to receive their part of AgroGloryTime profits.
Q. Where does your part of the profit come from?
We, as the owners of the enterprise, receive 100% of the income from its products. According to our model, which is described on our website, we are ready to direct up to 75% of the company’s profits to pay yield for token holders. And 25% still remain with us. However, after attracting sufficient funds, this part will exceed the company’s current turnover by a multiple in money terms. Therefore, this is a win-win case!
Q. Doesn’t this lead to the AGTI profitability decrease as you sell more tokens?
Absolutely, and we don’t make a secret of it. However, there’s a thing worth mentioning. As you remember, we attract finance for investments in business development. Recently, I explained in significant detail the wide range of promising projects we are working on. The thing is that by developing our production capabilities, we increase our productivity, and therefore, we earn more. Not only the number of beneficiaries is increasing but also the pie itself. And you can be sure that there will always be demand and distribution channels. Especially if you keep in mind the current situation in the global and domestic Ukrainian food market.
Q. How do you deliver the purchased tokens to their new holders since the smart contract has not been launched yet?
Yes, that’s true. We are currently running a pre-sale stage. In August, we are releasing a major update, and the tokens will appear in the personal accounts of buyers, so they could get all sufficient information on their allocation, profit, and so on there. As soon as there is a contract, we will transfer AGTI to users’ wallets.
Q. But will there be payouts for tokens already at this stage?
Absolutely. Sales have already started and have been going on for several months, and the first dividends to those who purchased tokens before the end of July will be paid out in stablecoins in autumn. Further, the payouts will be made once a quarter.
Q. How soon can we expect AGTI to appear on CEX and DEX?
The vesting period will last for at least a year, I think. Until it becomes available on exchanges, the investors won’t be able to sell it. We will dedicate that time to working with the community, demonstrating the effectiveness of our model, and, surely, our business development. Finally, we will fulfill our obligations to pay dividends. And this, we hope, will be the strongest argument. After that, we will wait for a more optimistic situation in the crypto market and bring AGTI into the free float.
Q. How does the audience react to your project, given that it differs from most blockchain startups?
Great question. And you correctly noticed that AgroGloryTime has its own specifics. We are an offline company, and we focus on the development of our real, let’s say, analog business. Of course, while entering the crypto market with our own token, we strive to make the process of interaction with investors as transparent as possible. It is for this purpose that we are constantly working on the website and the upcoming AgroGloryTime DAO, which is also on our roadmap. Anyway, there are a lot of plans and tasks, and I am glad that we are on schedule.
Q. How do you interact with an international audience, and how important is it to you?
It is essential! That is why, choosing among all the fundraising tools, we settled on the blockchain-based one. In technical terms, we are ready to work and are already working with investors from all over the world as part of the pre-sale campaign. I would relatively divide our current audience into internal and global. And we strive to communicate and cover the interest of both these audiences on AgroGloryTime social media channels. In the first stage, quite a lot of Ukrainian investors supported us. This is not surprising because our enterprise is well known in the country. And the potential for agriculture in our region is almost unlimited. Therefore, as soon as such an opportunity appeared, the interest came. I feel we are on the right path.
