In its first investment in crypto, hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen’s early-stage investment firm, Point72 Ventures, led a $21 million funding round in Messari, the crypto market intelligence provider.
Founded in 2018, Messari is an online database for the crypto industry that compiles and analyzes data on the up and downs of the cryptocurrency markets for the likes of Coinbase, Gemini, and Chainalysis through an open-source library of information. It’s one of the many players racing to build out data dashboards and analytical tools to support the extension of cryptocurrencies as an asset class.
Old and new forces join and help the crypto market running.
Despite the recent instability, the $1.6 trillion worth of crypto market is expected to continue growing at a good pace, thanks to mainstream giants like JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity Investments, and Goldman Sachs pushing deeper into the crypto space. The arrival of Etherum’s new upgrade, EIP-1559, might also drive momentum into the market for a while.
“While investor participation in the crypto industry has grown exponentially over the past three years, current crypto research and analysis tools are still lacking the sophisticated signals and data that more investors need,” said Adam Carson, operating partner at Point72 Ventures. “Messary is filling that much-needed space, creating a central access point for reliable information for the entire crypto ecosystem.”
Use of the fund
Funded exclusively by cohen’s capital, Point72 Ventures has invested in many sectors ranging from cloud technology to fintech to artificial intelligence. It is part of Point72 Asset Management, which oversees 422.1 billion in assets. Some big names include existing backers like Coinbase Ventures and Uncork Capital, with new investors Alameda Capital, Kraken Ventures, and Blockchain Ventures.
With the capital, Messari plans to expand sales of its flagship offerings and to triple the size of its engineering and research teams, broaden its market intelligence platform and launch new token governance tools. Ryan Selkis, Messari’s co-founder and CEO, has highlighted how the crypto market is getting by the combination of crypto veterans already experienced in the field and the upcoming institutions. The farm recently launched a Messari Asset Coverage Support research tool to make things easier for the institutes to get new customers and support crypto assets.
