Big names including Bain Capital and Mastercard are backing Barry Silbert's bitcoin venture

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barry silbert

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Entrepreneur Barry Silbert

Barry Silbert doesn't appear to be a big fan of 'down time.'

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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.

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"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.

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