BASIS NEURO

Obviously they have industry experience but lack blockchain and ico skills. And it is a crucial to succeed. The team is too localised and no savvy advisors

Update rating :
They added some good Advisors. team is doing good work.
need some good advisors on team.

Great idea. Good team with solid skills. Missing Blockchain talent and gravitas. Proprietary software goes against the concept of decentralisation and the ethos of the movement.

Update 17 June 2018: In brief, false information were found within this project (with evidence in its whitepaper & Telegram verification). I've originally rated this ICO 2 5 3 but after some relentless harassment from the CEO who instead of clarifying the red flags that I've raised, choose to make baseless allegations+accusations and thus, I've changed their rating to 1 1 1 mainly for providing false information in their whitepaper, refer to C6 below for a quick summary.

Details (with detailed evidence) below:

First review on 29 March 2018

1. The official telegram group for BasisNeuro is https://t.me/basisneurocom and has a reasonable no. of members, 2,399 as of this review and is expected to increase further.

2. BasisNeuro team of advisors is more extensive within their main website, https://basisneuro.com than within ICOBench. The BasisNeuro admin may want to add the names of the other advisors here so that ICOBench reviewers do not jump to the conclusion based on just the limited info within ICOBench itself.

3. One key competitive advantage that BasisNeuro claimed to have is its patented technology, as indicated in its FAQ https://basisneuro.com/faq/ "Do you have a patents?", the answer is "Yes, in ten years of operation of the Basis Neuro laboratory, significant discoveries in the field of neuro-technologies were obtained, which is confirmed by dozens of publications in international scientific paper. The list of patents and key publications is presented in WhitePaper."

I've probed further with the team within its Telegram group and understand that (and is consistent with pg 52 of its WP, that the team claim to have 1 patent and 7 software registration.

I was able to locate for the cited Russian patent application no.
2009133005/14, titled "A method for classification of electroencephalographic signals in the brain-computer interface." Vladimirsky B.M., Vladimirsky B.B., Kan M.N., Shepelev I.E. owned by The Russian Federation, represented by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (RU), the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Southern Federal University" (RU), and not BasisNeuro.
Source: http://www1.fips.ru/wps/portal/Registers

It is unclear if this patent is granted but I was informed that Shepelev I.E. is part of the BasisNeuro team.

I did a further patent search in the Orbit.com patent database and was not able to locate for any patent under "Basis Neuro" or "BasisNeuro" but I understand from the team (in Telegram) that they are working on filing their own patent applications in the future.

4. It is unclear if the patent is currently owned by Basis Neuro or is still under the ownership of the Russian university.

5. The inventor Shepelev I.E. is visibly missing from the BasisNeuro Telegram group, I have left a message in their Telegram group stating that "Igor being part of the team is definitely great due his relevant background... do encourage Igor to be part of the Telegram team as he would certainly be able to aid your fund raising"

I may revise my ratings after receiving answers to my above questions. I will also revise the team rating once the same inventor Igor has joined in their Telegram group.

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Nik Sviridov, ICO team member replied on 7 Jun 2018
You are an advisor of scammers, so I'm surprised at your ratings.
Could you explain what's going on?
https://t.me/neurogress

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Reply to Nik (on 16 June 2018):
1. For the record, my ratings for Neurogress prior to them appointing me as their Innovation Advisor was similar (something which you probably don't care) to Basis Neuro.
2. What's better than a continued due diligence from the inside? For Neurogress, once I'm in the inner team, I got to interact with their CTO Aleksandr and also the tech team to priortise on the technology towards a product. CEO Konstantin was interestingly missing from all our discussion and meetings and as it turns out, there was a fall out within the team leading to the cancellation of the ICO as well as subsequent refunds. The latest for Neurogress is where the Aleksandr has formed a separate Telegram group attempting to continue the project via private funding instead of the ICO path.
3. Nik, perhaps instead of trying to change the topic, you or any of it's core team should be spending time answering my questions arising from my due diligence on your ICO - which for the record when I raised various questions (including uncomfortable questions) to the Neurogress team, they promptly replied me back then.
4. As for Neuro Basis's Shepelev I.E., one person by the name of Igor Sherpelev eventually joined the Telegram group and wrote to me requesting that I change my ratings in ICOBench since he has managed to reached me via Telegram as per my request.
My reply to Igor @Shep_BasisNeuro was:
"Sounds like you don't understand how verification works.
You shld be aware that anybody can create a Telegram user account and use whomever name they wish, eg. I can rename my account as Bill Gates and use his photo.
To put it in a manner that you might understand, I'm verifying if you are who you claim you are - and the fact that you are very reluctant to verify your identity using Igor's official emails does imply to me that you might not be him after all."
However, his response was more to distract me with his opinion on Neurogress instead of confirming that he is the same Igor from SFU (by sending me an email from his SFU account).
5. As of 16 June 2018, neither @Shep_BasisNeuro nor Igor Shepelev is in the Basis Neuro Telegram group interacting with the community.
6. FYI, if Igor has contacted me using his SFU email address, your rating would be the same or higher than that of Neurogress but if the responses from the team is continued distraction and excuses, so be it.

As part of full disclosure (you may noticed my hint to them that MUSE is not a good input device and the product rating was not upgraded as there was no publications by the team members), this was my ratings for Neurogress (before and after being Neurogress's Innovation Advisor):
"First reviewed on 11 Feb 2018:
1. Researchers worldwide have been tackling brain computer interface for more than 2 decades with limited success.
2. The addition of robotics into BCI is an added complexity.
3. The customer feedback on the MUSE device can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Muse-Brain-Sensing-Headband-Black/dp/B00LOQR37C#customerReviews
4. A good article on the state of the art in this are is http://news.mit.edu/2017/brain-controlled-robots-0306
5. I have asked the team to share with me relevant publications either directly related or indirectly related to their product but received none - perhaps the team is currently overwhelmed with their ICO campaign - will wait for your response and I'll revise my rating accordingly.
6. I understand the frustrations involved in fund raising via seed and Series A rounds, and why you have taking the ICO/Blockchain route.
7. I can see potential Neurogress related inventions that are patentable, an option that the team may consider pursuing.
8. Best wishes.
Update (12 Feb 2018): The team has responded to be in the Telegram group and will be sharing a portion of their source code for inspection to some of us. I would have change my Team score from 3.0 to 3.5 but ICOBench score type is integer rather than floating-point.
Update (15 Mar 2018): As part of full disclosure, after various in-depth communication with the team members, I was roped in as an Innovation Advisor to help in the fulfillment of NRG's vision. I'll also be integrating NRG works with the patented IP Blockchain after the TGE. I'll also leave my rating as it is, ie. no change from 12 Feb 2018."

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Nik Sviridov, ICO team member replied on 16 Jun 2018:
You are an adviser to scammers. It is your advice that probably caused the neurogress to steal money from people. I think your ratings are affiliated. You get paid for this. No honesty and cleanliness. Details of your deception can be found here: t.me/neurogress

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2nd Reply to Nik (on 16 June 2018):

C1. Three false allegations made by Nik (CEO of Neuro Basis) that "it was my advice that probably caused the neurogress to steal money from people".
(i) Where is your proof regarding my advice,
(ii) Where is your proof that Neurogress stole money from people, and
(iii) Where is your proof that it's my advice that casued neurogressto steal money from people?
C2. Fourth false allegation by Nik that "I think your ratings are affiliated. You get paid for this.", I was not paid to do ALL my reviews within ICOBench.
C3. Regarding the claim of "No honesty and cleanliness", I'll leave it to the public to judge my actions and your actions.
C4. Fifth false allegation by Nik that "Details of your deception can be found here: t.me/neurogress". Show us the proof.
C5. As a CEO of Neuro Basis, instead of clarifying various red flags that I've raised about Neuro Basis, the CEO use distraction tactic and made various baseless allegations.
C6. After more than 2.5 months later, the CEO and team choose to avoid explaining the red flags that I've highlighted in my 29 March 2018 review on their project, namely:
i) patent owned by "The Russian Federation, represented by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation" and not owned by Basis Neuro,
ii) Fake Igor Shepelev as confirmed in my conversation with someone who claimed to be him, see full chat transcript between @Shep_BasisNeuro and myself: http://ye.sg/download/ico/Shep&BasisNeuro.htm
C7. Due to the false information that were found to be within the Neuro Basis whitepaper, I am now revising my rating for Neuro Basis to 1 1 1
C8. Those planning to buy Neuro Basis tokens may wish to verify my due diligence pointers and decide for yourself if I'm lying or telling the truth.
C9. The truth will prevail.


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Nik Sviridov, ICO team member replied on 16 Jun 2018
"You are an advisor of competitors. Neurogress scammers. They stole money. We paid you for our low rating. Maybe together with them you stole money from investors. Nothing surprising. Details of fraud can be seen here: t.me/neurogress" * 2 times

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3rd Reply to Nik (on 16 June 2018):

C10. Sixth (and ridiculous) allegation with zero proof "We paid you for our low rating".
C11. Seventh allegation with zero proof "Maybe together with them you stole money from investors"

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Nik Sviridov ICO team member replied on 20 Jun 2018
You are an adviser to competitors.
Your assessment of the prohibition of the rules of the icobench. Because you get paid for promoting your project and for negative feedback about other projects.

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4th Reply to Nik (22 June 2018)
C12. I am currently no longer an Innovation Advisor to Neurogress and ICOBench accepted that.
C13. ICOBench has directly reached out to me to clarify my comments and they have accepted my explanation regarding how I've rated Basis Neuro, as well as acknowledge the red flags that I've raised.

My advice to Basis Neuro is to clear the red flags, rather than use diversion strategy to avoid addressing the red flags. Which red flags, search for C6 within my lengthy review here.

I love the tech side of this!

Based just on the public information here and on the Basis Neuro website (not on what I could assume, based on the knowledge about other activities of this team, which are way more impressive), I have to give that low rates to this ICO at the moment. The project itself is very good if not excellent, but the ICO looks amateur. Literally, those parts of WP, where you tell about the technology, are fine, those about the ICO and a blockchain are substandard.

Very insufficient information about the actual product, lack of recognizable blockchain expert in the team, lack of financial or marketing model, lack of substantial token economics description or future token valuation model, Cayman Islands domicile in 2018, "very Russian English" in the White Paper... That can go on forever. Simply this project is not complete at least on a presentation side and therefore it is not ready for an ICO.

Hope to see a lot of fixes, so I can improve the rates.

Update 10.04.2018:
Following the ICO profile and media updates I update the rates. It still will take more time to verify numbers (some extra rates adjustment may follow), yet improvement are well seen and have been noticed.

Update 1204.2018:
Updating the rates after verifying the substantial corrections.

The team should exchange this video / description with the real life work they're doing - will be more effective.

I wouldn't disagree with the other ratings with regards to blockchain experts, however, it's important to do a little more research on their product. I think their product is excellent and with a little more tweak it will have a significant application. The team has developed real-life mind-bending products. Therefore 5 and 5 for product and vision.