- A new crypto VC fund has been attracting wall street billionaires and LL Cool J
- The VC fund was launched by Glenn Hutchins, his son James Hutchins and partner Travis Scher
- This continuous mainstream investment indicates that cryptos are still going institutional
2020 was described as the year Bitcoin went institutional. The likes of Grayscale, Massmutual, MicroStrategy, Fidelity Investments, Ruffer Investment, and Guggenheim Partners LLC represents just a portion of institutional investors who threw their weight behind Bitcoin in 2020.
Entering 2021, we have seen a fresh resurgence of institutional interest, even when the crypto markets seemed to falter.
A January report shows that institutional interest in cryptos has been increasing, especially in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Investors are buying the Ether as it is considered a store of value.
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In confirmation of the increasing mainstream interest in cryptos, a new VC fund has been backed by billionaires.
North Island Ventures – The New Crypto VC Fund for Billionaires
The new crypto VC fund, North Island Ventures, was launched by private equity veteran Glenn Hutchins. Part of the co-founders including James Hutchins, and co-founder of North Island Ventures, Travis Scher.
North Island Ventures is a venture capital firm based in New York, New York founded in 2017. The VC firm has now added crypto trading to its platform.
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James Hutchins, who previously headed research at one of the largest technology-focused investment funds, Coatue Management, is the chairman of North Island Ventures.
North Island Ventures’ Investors
After its launch, it has seen investments from hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, entrepreneur and record producer James Todd Smith (better known as LL Cool J), Raj and Indra Nooyi (the latter being the former CEO of PepsiCo).
The long list of high-profile investors includes Josh Harris, the billionaire co-founder of the investment company Apollo Group, venture capitalist Geoff Yang, Anthony Noto, Vincent Viola, and Joe Moglia, former CEO of TD Ameritrade and retired Coastal Carolina head football coach.
On the Flipside
- Messaging and voice chat platform, Discord, had its servers targeted in a wave of cryptocurrency exchange scams
- A cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky, Mikhail Sytnik, explained that scam artists are now entering Discord servers
- He noted that they are sending private messages to users that appear to be from new, up-and-coming cryptocurrency exchanges when in reality, there is none
The Future of Finance
North Island Ventures has raised over $72 million in funding. The fund has explained with the use of cryptos and blockchain tech it can offer services that entrepreneurs can leverage and combine to create applications that could not previously exist.
There is extraordinary momentum behind decentralized solutions to some of society’s biggest problems, and our goal at North Island Ventures is to partner with the top entrepreneurs in the world bringing these solutions to life.
Moving in the direction of offering better services, North Island Ventures has already made seven investments so far, including Nori, Dapper Labs, and Axelar – a blockchain firm building a new interoperability protocol that will enable cross-chain transactions and messaging.
