Venture capital’s interest in crypto wanes, and 10T Holdings, which manages $1.2 billion in assets, is “running out of ammunition.”

Original title: "Managing $1.2 billion in assets but running out of ammunition", who did 10T Holdings, focusing on mid-to-late stage investments, give their money to?

Original source: Zen, PANews

Under the bear market, the interest of venture capital in cryptocurrency has significantly slowed down. 10T Holdings, a well-known cryptocurrency investment institution with three funds, is currently "running out of ammunition". The institution, which manages $1.2 billion in assets, can only wait for the next bull market or further opening up of IPOs for cryptocurrency institutions. However, the two founders behind it are both raising funds for their new funds and will continue to focus on the cryptocurrency industry.

The name 10T comes from the founder Dan Tapiero's expectations for the cryptocurrency industry. In 2019, he predicted that the total market value of cryptocurrencies would increase 30 times and eventually reach $10 trillion, which is why he named his cryptocurrency investment fund 10T. Unlike other digital asset funds such as Paradigm, 10T focuses on investing in companies in the mid-to-late stage of the digital asset ecosystem. In his view, there are many venture capital funds that provide financing for seed and early-stage companies, but there are almost no funds dedicated to providing late-stage funding and liquidity. 10T provides liquidity directly to early-stage funds and investors who hope to gain some chips from early-stage investments. As an early investor "bottom feeder," 10T undoubtedly chose the "Hard" mode for itself.

Since the launch of its first fund in early 2021, 10T Holdings has had a total of three funds, managing $1.2 billion in assets. Through primary and secondary markets, 10T invests in mature companies with scalable operations, with its investment portfolio mostly consisting of well-known companies and projects in the cryptocurrency industry, such as Ledger, Kraken, eToro, Yuga Labs, Helium developer Nova Labs, Deribit, and Animoca Brands.

10T Holdings Core Team

As a long-time advocate for both gold and Bitcoin, well-known investor Dan Tapiero has 30 years of experience in macro and commodity investing and trading, research and economics, as well as entrepreneurship. He is a core member of 10T Holdings, serving as Managing Partner, CEO, and CIO. Tapiero has extensive relationships in institutional investment management and prior to founding 10T, he founded global macro investment fund DTAP Capital Advisors in 2003 and later founded physical precious metals platform Gold Bullion International (GBI) in 2014. The core similarities between Bitcoin theory and physical gold helped him recognize the potential for growth in the digital asset ecosystem.

In 2013, Dan Tapiero began to pay attention to Bitcoin, but initially sold it due to its small market value and the idea of it being a "plaything" for venture capital. With the development of the cryptocurrency field, he realized that he had overlooked the value of Bitcoin, and his concept changed to believing that it could become a financial system, becoming a firm supporter and evangelist.

In February 2021, Tapiero launched a $200 million fund, and 10T officially began investing in the cryptocurrency industry. In September of the same year, 10T's two funds, 10T Fund and 10T DAE Expansion Fund, received nearly $389 million in capital commitments, and with co-investments and sub-advisors, 10T raised nearly $750 million for its overall strategy. At the end of the year, 10T launched its third digital asset investment fund, aiming to raise $500 million, but the actual amount raised was not publicly disclosed. 10T's investors include diversified asset allocators, in addition to high net worth individuals, there are also public pension plans, charitable foundations, endowments, and family offices, including the Michigan Municipal Employees' Retirement System and Alan Howard.

Stan Miroshnik is a partner and co-founder of 10T, with nearly 20 years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance, and venture capital. He has established strong global relationships with entrepreneurs, companies, regulatory agencies, fintech, and blockchain investors in the digital asset ecosystem. Stan focuses on fintech and digital asset fields and is a prolific early-stage investor who has served as an advisor and board member for several early-stage companies. He has served as Managing Director of Element/Actual Group, a digital asset-focused investment bank, and Tangent Capital Partners, as well as CEO of The Argon Group, a digital financial investment bank specializing in the crypto capital market.

Except for Dan and Stan, several partners of 10T also have rich experience and connections in the investment field. Eric Vincent, a partner and president of 10T, has over 25 years of experience in creating, developing, and managing alternative asset management companies. Prior to joining 10T, Eric served as the head of business development at Mubadala Capital, the alternative investment arm of the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Company. Joe Majocha, a partner and CFO of 10T, previously served as managing director of Two Sigma Investments and COO/CFO of Two Sigma's private investments division. In addition, Michael J. Dubilier, a partner and vice chairman of 10T, entered the investment field in 1983 and has over 30 years of experience in private equity and direct investments in industrial, consumer, and technology companies, as well as entrepreneurship.

10T has deployed all funds and the two founders have each established their own portals this year.

At the beginning of this year, there was a quiet change within 10T. Tapiero stated in an interview with The Block in February that 10T will no longer conduct any financing and will not launch any new 10T funds. The two founders chose to "go their separate ways" and each established a new fund. According to LinkedIn information, Tapiero and Miroshnik established investment institutions in January of this year, but both still retain their positions at 10T. According to Bloomberg's report in May of this year, an anonymous source said that 10T Holdings has deployed all the funds previously raised. Therefore, 10T is facing the dilemma of having no rice in the pot and can only do the post-investment work of previous investments and wait for an exit.

According to The Block's report in February, Tapiero announced that he is establishing his own private equity firm, 1RoundTable Partners (1RT for short). The goal is to raise $1 billion in funds by the end of the third quarter. Currently, the company has received support from well-known investors such as Alan Howard, also known as the "Macro God".

As the evolution and continuation of 10T Holdings' investment strategy, the core team of 1RT mostly comes from 10T. Tapiero invited 10T partners Michael Dubilier and Eric Vincent to join, while Joe Majocha remains the CFO of 1Rountable. In addition, Tapiero recruited former Sotheby's CEO Tad Smith as an advisory partner. In terms of investment strategy, 1RT still focuses on supporting mid-to-late stage digital asset companies with "significant potential for price appreciation in the next 5 to 10 years." According to relevant materials, 1RT's flagship fund will have a 5-year investment period and a 10-year fund term, with investment focus roughly divided into three categories: new era digital asset ecosystems, digital asset ecosystem infrastructure, and metaverse categories, including companies focused on NFTs.

Stan Miroshnik, another co-founder of 10T, has also started his own venture. In May of this year, a new cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm called TenSquared Capital (10SQ for short) was reported by Bloomberg to be seeking to raise $200 million. According to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Stan Miroshnik serves as CEO and managing partner at 10SQ, with several former 10T executives joining him. Unlike 10T, which focuses on mid-to-late stage projects, 10SQ, led by early-stage investment expert Stan Miroshnik, plans to support cryptocurrency projects at all stages through equity investments. With funds already raised, 10SQ has made two investments, including a cryptocurrency wallet infrastructure startup.

Invest in star projects and look forward to the IPO of cryptocurrency companies

10T focuses on investing in mid-to-late stage projects in the digital asset ecosystem, with relatively large funding for the rounds it participates in. For example, this year, 10T has successively led three projects, with the smallest being Blockworks, which announced $12 million in May this year. QuickNode and AI Metaverse have received $60 million and $54 million in funding, respectively.

Most of the projects invested by 10T have matured and are well-known in the industry. Companies in its investment portfolio, such as Circle, eToro, and Kraken, have been preparing for IPOs in recent years. 10T also wants to exit through an initial public offering (IPO). However, due to the impact of the cryptocurrency bear market and strict regulatory scrutiny, these companies have not yet successfully gone public. Tapiero remains optimistic about the prospects of cryptocurrency companies going public and believes that the second half of 2024 and 2025 may be a good time, predicting that some cryptocurrency enterprises will go public at that time.

Metaverse & NFT

Animoca Brands: Metaverse gaming and venture capital giant.

Candy Digital: Shuzang Development Company, is the official digital collectibles partner of Major League Baseball, Netflix, WWE, Getty Images, and Race Team Alliance.

Doodles: Community-driven NFT brand.

Futureverse: An AI metaverse startup that integrates 11 metaverse infrastructure and content companies into a collaborative ecosystem, and provides the basic components for building metaverse applications.

Yuga Labs: The developer of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which also owns the CryptoPunks and Meebits IP.

Infrastructure & Tools

Bitfury: a blockchain infrastructure provider that develops and offers software and hardware solutions for enterprises, governments, organizations, and individuals to securely transfer assets on the blockchain.

CertiK: A blockchain security and code auditing agency that utilizes artificial intelligence technology to protect and monitor blockchain protocols and smart contracts.

Figment: a blockchain infrastructure and service provider that offers enterprise-level nodes and staking infrastructure, Hubble Web 3 browser, and developer tools.

Qredo: Encryption custody and settlement technology company, providing decentralized encryption custody protected by multi-party computation (MPC).

QuickNode: a blockchain infrastructure company that provides node infrastructure and application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers.

Ledger: Cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider.

Nova Labs: The development company behind the Helium blockchain. Helium is a decentralized wireless network.

InfStones: a blockchain infrastructure provider that supports thousands of nodes on over 50 public blockchains through its universal platform.

Financial Assets:

Huobi: a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2013.

Gemini: a cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2014.

Kraken: Cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011.

2TM Group: Brazilian encryption company, its cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin was established in 2013.

Deribit: Cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform, also the world's largest institutional-grade cryptocurrency options exchange.

eToro: A social trading and investment network that allows users to view the financial trading activities of other users, copy those activities, and conduct their own trades.

Circle: Developer and issuer of stablecoin USDC.

Figure: A blockchain lending company that utilizes the Provenance blockchain for loan issuance, equity management, private fund services, banking operations, and payments.

Ledn: Canadian Cryptocurrency Lending Platform.

TRM Labs: a blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses, and government agencies detect and investigate financial crimes and fraud related to cryptocurrencies.

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia