Big names including Bain Capital and Mastercard are backing Barry Silbert's bitcoin venture
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
He sold SecondMarket, the startup he founded that morped into an online stock exchange for hot, private startups' shares, to Nasdaq last week.
Now he is setting up bitcoin-related startup Digital Currency Group with the backing of some big names in finance.
The list of backers includes: Bain Capital Ventures, CIBC, CME Ventures, MasterCard, New York Life and Transamerica Ventures
DCG was formed after Genesis Global Trading and Grayscale Investments - two companies built under the SecondMarket parent company - were unified to support an early-stage investing portfolio targeting digital currency operations. Grayscale Investments manages the publicly traded Bitcoin Investment Trust.
"Some of the earliest investments I made via Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. included BitPay, Circle, Coinbase, itBit, Ripple and Xapo - which at the time were long shots for many investors," Silbert said in a statement. "Since then, we've invested into 57 companies across 18 countries, and continue to grow at a rapid pace."
Existing investments span from Africa to Asia, Europe to South America and, of course, the US. Simi Wurtzel will serve as comptroller and vice president of finance; Ryan Selkis will be director of investments at DCG.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- An Ambani disruption in OTT: At just ₹1 per day, you can now enjoy ad-free content on JioCinema
- In second consecutive week of decline, forex kitty drops $2.28 bn to $640.33 bn
- SBI Life Q4 profit rises 4% to ₹811 crore
- IMD predicts severe heatwave conditions over East, South Peninsular India for next five days
- COVID lockdown-related school disruptions will continue to worsen students’ exam results into the 2030s: study
- India legend Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 ambassador
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market