Stephen Cohen’s venture capital firm, Point72 Ventures, is investing in a fifth cryptocurrency company.
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The crypto market has lost $ 2 trillion in value since November 2021, but Steve Cohen’s $ 22 billion hedge fund venture, which influenced “1 billion” TV shows, said last week 5 Announced that it has invested in a second crypto company, a decentralized financial company that provides data and transaction execution services for institutions.
The $ 20 million round was led by billionaire investor Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, which is Cohen’s latest in a series of bare market hedge transactions, private equity and private equity in the organization. Based on the past work of hedge funds in.
It’s worth noting that Cohen continues to be involved in the $ 41 billion industry that is struggling as financial institutions reassess how they use or do not use decentralized finance. .. Also noteworthy is his company’s decision to build yet another bridge between cryptocurrencies and large trusted companies.
“We talked to the existing portfolio of fintech companies, and we’ve heard from financial institutions in particular that it’s very clear that crypto is a top priority,” said Point72 Ventures’ crypto efforts. Adam Carson, the leading operating partner of the company, said. “Their customers were demanding crypto products or saw it as a new business opportunity.”
Founded in 2016, based in New York, Point 72 Ventures is best known for investing in early-stage technology companies. According to a spokeswoman for Point72 Ventures, the company has more than 100 venture portfolio companies such as Peloton and Mirror, with more than $ 1 billion in capital.
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Venture companies didn’t start cryptographic work until about 15 months ago, but Cohen’s transformation goes back even further. In 2018, his family company, Cohen Private Ventures, invested in San Francisco-based Autonomous Partners. The founding partner of this venture has joined Andreessen Horowitz.
Cohen’s New York-based venture currently employs 30 people, about one-third of which are engaged in cryptocurrencies and broader fintech investments. The company’s cryptography aims to help financial institutions and companies migrating to Web3 by investing in companies that help integrate the crypto and non-cryptographic worlds. In particular, its crypto investment is driven by a non-crypt portfolio and demand from potential users.
Point72 Ventures has not disclosed the terms and conditions of its investment so far, but was a major investor in a series A round of New York-based research and data platforms, the first cryptocurrency investment. He also led the Chicago-based Zero Hash Seed Round, a crypto infrastructure company that provides solutions for platforms for trading digital assets.
Other investments include New York-based Massive. It provides a new way for users to pay for digital apps and services. A Bermuda-based 24Exchange, multi-asset class trading platform. And its latest investment, Skolem Technologies, is a DeFi trading company that helps financial institutions enter decentralized financial spaces without hiring new employees.
“Talking to hedge funds led to Messari and Skolem. Talking to FinTech led to an investment in Zero Hash. Then talking to a bank led to an investment in 24Exchange. “I was directly connected to,” says Carson.
Investing is part of a larger trend as institutional investors are revaluing Stablecoin, with the total amount trapped in the Diffie market down 50% from March to $ 41 billion today. , Many investors in this area remain optimistic.
In early June, troubled crypto exchange Binance raised $ 500 million to invest in Web3 companies, and venture capital firm Felix Capital raised $ 600 million for the same purpose. Cryptocurrency and blockchain funding has more than doubled since 2020, raising $ 5.2 billion in 2020 and $ 11.7 billion so far in 2022. According to capital markets data firm PitchBook, it’s $ 13.4 billion.
Point72 Asset Management has been very successful and Cohen currently estimates it is worth $ 16 billion. Forbes The data influenced the ongoing hit show “Billions,” starring Damian Lewis as hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod.
The infamous and quiet Cohen did not comment on this article, but last year he told the investment newsletter Stray Reflections that he was “fully converted” into cryptography. Cohen spoke at the Skybridge Alternative Summit last year and said his conversion was largely due to what he described as his “cryptomaniac” son who helped change his mind. .. “He was really convinced that this was what I had to do,” Cohen said.
In addition to institutional market research, the Point72 Ventures crypto team focuses on companies that let others offer crypto products. “They would say,’We want to provide buying, selling, trading experience, and crypto rewards.'” They saw what PayPal and Robin Hood did. It has just introduced crypto products into their ecosystem, “Carson says.
Many of these companies faced similar problems — they lacked the skills needed to help them get up and run. This led to the first implementation of Point72 Ventures in a crypto space, an institutional market infrastructure that provides services that essentially support financial institutions. “We landscaped the entire universe of that institutional market infrastructure (in crypto space), which led to the first few investments,” says Carson.
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