As the year is drawing to an end, I want to take a moment to wish you and your loved ones a fabulous and joyous close of play (better than holidays season no?). You have rocked up day in day out to help us get there to a very strong position although it wasn't an easy year.

Another year of transition, the third one in a row€¦Another challenging year and equally exhilarating. We are getting world-class at transitioning! :)

Our third product didn't work out and we were stretched too thinly to make it work anyway. After BrokerFabrik, CryptoFabrik, we have now XPI joining the ranks. Three years, three failures, the cycle is complete as our elders would say :things come in three€¦

We are not a tanker with hundreds or thousands of staff so these three failures haven't destroyed us yet and Nietsche would be happy to know that they made us stronger as a team, as a company.

They have informed our design and strategy around our fourth (and hopefully final) product, CrossPool. Your efforts haven't been wasted: their features will be useful as we grow our company and add to our differentiation.

Whilst the version 1 was only complete early Q4, all the outreach we did in the year paid to get CrossPool noticed: institutions have replaced those who merely wanted to tokenise their assets.

We have some big names in the pipeline€¦Great but as you know institutions are slow.

Some want to do a POC, some want to wait for us to grow, some want to invest and some want to partner€¦It's a mix bag but I am very confident that 2020 will bring one or two of these big boys and that is what I am spending my time on. As soon as we have a client's name that speaks for itself then the rest will follow.

At the same time, we have to be pragmatic and extend our chances of survival which is why we have had a lot more demo in the last quarter (that's even without the ones I have given, it's not a competition! ;)). Insurance, collectibles, art, wine, movies€¦It's not that anything goes but CrossPool will be a player in most assets if we get it right (right time, right partner, right market etc.).

We had a fair amount of turnover, something that might have you ponder as to why my mate is leaving. We try, we plough through, we move forward as a team but more often than not we experience setbacks as individuals.

We might feel bad or sad about one of our friends leaving but I always think it is for the best as their growth path gets another boost at another company. We are always here to help them in their new endeavour, to welcome them back if possible and more importantly stay as friends.

The end of the year is always a good vantage point to look back (the above), ponder about what didn't work so well and move forward stronger.

Focussing on what is perceived as negative is the only way to learn valuable lessons, whilst developing one's strengths is the way to progress further.

I failed on my two goals of getting us to free cashflow and close the series A. I went out there naked until we had CrossPool done to a presentable level in Oct/Nov but it helped me understand the market and position CrossPool better.

The explosion of DLT applications in capital markets hasn't happened but 2019 has been a great year as a reinforcement that we are on the right track: all major exchanges have or are planning to release a new DLT based platform, more competitors seem to be going the right way away from pump and dump ICO schemes, DLT networks are steps closer to become more interoperable.

We are still early in an early evolution of the markets.

Our mission FINANCE FOR ALL: MADE WITH FINFABRIK hasn't changed, we have refined it to speak to a more precise set of prospects: WE PARTNER WITH FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN PRIVATE MARKETS TO GROW NEW CHANNELS POWERED BY DLT'.

Let's all have this engraved in our mind for all of us are brand ambassadors.

With our impending Series A targeted for end of Q1, we will strengthen our bench and bring new talent. Let's welcome them onto our journey and finally morph into a SME.

Thank you to each one of you for your commitment, passion, professionalism, willingness to learn and share. Let's continue to grow together.

We have never started a year being that strong, the best is yet to come.

Loads of love

A