Vancouver-based Hex Capital, which invests in early-stage crypto assets and blockchain companies, has launched with a $10 million fund.
Investors in the fund include Xsquared Ventures, 7 Gate Ventures, and Hamed Shahbazi, founder of TIO Networks, which was acquired by PayPal for $310 million in 2017.
“Today, large companies dominate the world’s wealth and resources both in our physical and digital worlds,” said Ali Saheli, founding general partner of Hex Capital. Saheli is also a partner at 7 Gate Ventures, an early-stage fund that has invested in Vancouver companies like Blanc Labs and Spocket.
Hex Capital plans to invest in early-stage crypto assets and blockchain companies that are broadly solving technological, social, and financial problems.
“Even as the number of sharing economies increases, network platforms still need to be run by intermediaries such as Uber, Airbnb, and Instagram, all of whom are centrally managed and extract a significant portion of financial benefits from the networks,” he said. “We believe that blockchain’s qualities—notably decentralized governance, an open immutable ledger and the ability for peer-to-peer transactions—are providing the infrastructure to redistribute democratic participation and power.”
Hex Capital plans to invest in early-stage companies that are broadly solving technological, social, and financial problems. Its investments so far include Vault12, which offers a decentralized, serverless platform to store cryptocurrency; and Bloom, which offers decentralized credit scoring powered by Ethereum. Hex has also invested in CryptoKitties, which recently raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.
Founded in 2017, the firm said that it takes a “data-driven approach” to investing; while non-crypto companies can use tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Segment to understand their customers, blockchain companies can glean insight from participants of their networks like miners, traders, and token staking. The firm is building a software to help its portfolio companies better understand the activities of their ecosystem.