Our minimum amount is 100,000.  We do plan on refunding investors of the TEC if we don't reach the minimum goal.  The ARK Team is escrow so if we don't reach the minimum 100,000 the funds will be given back to the investors.  If we reach 350,000+ we have stretch goals set in place.  You can find our advanced funding tiers here: https://blockpool.io/docs/BP_PROCEEDS_A.pdf

Regards,
locohammerhead

You have mentioned min amount as $100K but in the PDF document you have provided link, the lowest amount mentioned is 500BTC ($500-600K). Please can you explained how can you go ahead with the project if the funding is less than 500BTC?

In the first page the list of directors/developers is around 8-9, are you guys planning to work free for a year till product is developed?

This looks like a solid project. But an interesting question is what exactly has allowed both your projects to partner with each other? I'm curious to know since you're both doing similar things? Or is this Blockchain a niche that will do something ARK cannot? Thanks for your time.

Great question!  Our focus isn't solely around the Blockchain but how best to use it.  ARK Provides a perfect clean slate to work off of since they removed the LISK smart contracts which in their current iteration are a mess.  My understanding is the newest version of smart contracts from LISK are cleaner.  Our plan is to add them back in once LISK gets them ready.  Then the real fun begins.  

Most Blockchain startups focus just on the Blockchain.  They use it as a catch-all.  Years down the road, this is going to cause problems for chains and their adoption.  Our plan is to create a Data Agnostic Platform to do all the hard work routing data from one plugin to another.  Only inputting data into the chain when permanent data retention is an absolute requirement.  

Our platform will also facilitate connections between legacy systems and their respective databases.  In many cases companies are locked into legacy software for various different reasons and while Blockchains may help them, in many cases they don't solve the problem the companies face.  They don't replace software like SalesForce but they can play a major role in that replacement.

A few use cases we have come up with for our Blockchain and Platform.

A YouTube Competitor.  Using our Blockchain and platform, we can create a decentralized youtube, which allows fans to host video files for their favorite content creators and receive payment for it.  

Art Auctions.  As of right now Art is one of the hardest items to track.  It can pass from one person to another without word ever reaching the copyright holder.  We are working with a company to fix this utilizing our Blockchain and platform.  We would connect up their auction sites, utilizing smart contracts on the chain and our decentralized file hosting plugin, we would be able to link certificates of authenticity old and new to valid purchases.  This would play a huge role in decreasing blackmarket sales.

Music hosting and streaming services.  We plan on upgrading Aurovine and Audiocoin to utilize our new platform and chain.  We will be able to move away from centralized cloud hosting and rely on the vast swath of data space that fans usually have.  Fans would receive payment for hosting audio files and music videos purchased on the Aurovine site.

Those are just a few of the use cases that we have come up with.  I'm positive there are way more that we have yet to think of as well.

Regards,
locohammerhead

Thanks for the thorough response. I appreciate it. So when you mention these usecases are you building them yourselves or looking to partner with a potential digital currency entrepreneur who has the business development but needs a blockchain like BlockPool? For instance the YouTube competitor? Let me know if this question makes sense.

Most we plan on building ourselves.  We are already working on one use case for BuzzBike https://medium.com/blockpool/blockpool-brands-poc-8f699c627607
As of right now we don't have plans to build the youtube competitor (although I personally would like to do so, or at least see someone else do it using our platform and plugins).  However if we progress with development fast enough I wouldn't toss it out as a possibility since it does fall well within our realm.
If someone wanted to partner with us to get this built we would be more than happy to enter into talks about it and to lend support where we can.

What keeps you from using graphene (bitshares 2.0, steem, peerplays) as backend? 3 second blocks among other features are certainly better than what you mention in the op