Hedge fund titan Steven Cohen’s family office Point72 Ventures is leading a $21 million Series A round in Messari, an open-source data and research platform for crypto assets. The round also included angel investor Naval Ravikant, traditional venture capital firms Coinbase Ventures and Shasta Ventures, and Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert.
This news follows on the heels of Cohen’s dramatic entrance into the crypto space in early 2020. Upon its arrival with a $750 million war chest for investments in the blockchain industry, Point72 Ventures had already revealed its interest in the newly minted DeFi space. Notable investments include Tagomi, Cadence and Figure.
Messari specializes in data collection and analysis of large ecosystems from its products built specifically for transparency surrounding asset exchanges and metrics like on-chain activity. With complementary offerings from intros to different projects, users can better scope out who is operating behind various projects and more expansive metrics that are “invisible to most investors” at launch . The data-driven product has reportedly served over 20K active users since launching at the beginning of 2019.
Conversely, PointPoint72 is helmed by hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen who previously built up SAC Capital Advisors into one of the most successful hedge funds to exist with his reported 15% returns year after year until its shutdown amid insider trading charges called out by then SEC chairman Mary Jo White back in 2013.
History
Messari was founded in 2018 and is a cryptocurrency data and research platform that helps clarify the blockchain space.
Messari recently announced that Point72, a hedge fund managed by billionaire Steven Cohen, has led their $21M funding round.
Over the past few years, Messari has emerged as one of the leading platforms for gathering and evaluating cryptocurrency data.
This article will discuss Messari’s history and how it has evolved since its inception.
Messari’s mission
Messari’s mission is to build a more fair, transparent, and efficient crypto economy by making key data, analysis and research regarding the tokens in the blockchain ecosystem more readily available. Founded in 2018, Messari seeks to set digital asset industry standards around accounting practices, consumer protection initiatives and governance protocols. In July 2019 Messari acquired startup Difference Capital and rebranded it as Messari Inc., furthering their goal of providing trusted data for the digital asset market.
Their team consists of experienced entrepreneurs such as CEO Ryan Selkis who brings expertise from his roles with ConsenSys and CoinDesk. Recently SEC-registered hedge fund Point72 Ventures led a $21 million Series A round for Messari in June 2019 alongside notable investors Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder), Garry Tan (Y Combinator partner) and Brandtmeir Francis (ex-Coinbase chief).
Now that they have secured additional funding, they plan to expand their product suite to build additional features such as on-chain analytics tools and open APIs that provide industry standard pricing models and data sets that are comprehensive of the entire cryptocurrency market. The mission of Messari remains: to ensure that a level playing field exists in the financial world where anyone can access updates on an ecosystem’s health through reliable data points.
Messari’s products and services
Messari is a cryptocurrency data company that provides products and services to the crypto and investment communities. The company offers an open-source platform that allows users to track and analyze the performance, ownership, market activity, and other metrics of digital assets.
Messari also provides real-time data and analysis on digital asset price movements, emphasizing price transparency in the volatile digital asset markets. The company additionally offers a variety of research services to both institutional investors and individual investors looking for quantitative insights into digital asset markets.
In addition to providing information about various financial events related to blockchain technology, Messari also offers services tailored for regulators such as regulatory compliance assistance for crypto-asset trading platforms. Messari is currently used by over 500 institutional investors including hedge funds, venture capital firms, and private individuals who wish to take advantage of its analytical tools.
Hedge Fund Billionaire Steven Cohen’s Point72 Leads $21M Funding Round in Messari
Billionaire Steven Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 recently led a $21 million investment round in Messari, a digital asset data and research firm. This news comes as Point72 continues increasing its cryptocurrency market involvement.
Cohen’s office has expressed enthusiasm for this investment due to Messari’s ability to provide valuable data and generate innovative research on the digital asset markets. In this article, we will look at the details of this investment and what implications it may have in the future of the cryptocurrency industry.
Point72’s involvement
Hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen’s family office Point72 recently led a new investment round in the crypto data provider Messari. According to its official statement on July 10, Messari closed a $21 million funding round with participation by four venture firms and other smart money investors.
Point72 is part of Cohen’s $14 billion family office, known as one of the best hedge fund managers in history. Point72 invests in technology industries and companies that align with the firm’s core mandates.
The latest funding from Cohen’s arm provides feedback — from institutional investors and those involved in early-stage venture capital — geared toward supporting Messari’s growth objectives for 2020 and beyond. As noted by the company’s CEO Ryan Selkis, the fresh capital will position Messari to expand its “data set offerings, launch new analytical tools, roll out real-time feeds, build managed datasets for internal systems and expand its team across key positions.”
Reasons for the investment
Financial technology investment is a key strategy for legendary hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen. His firm, Point72 Asset Management, has invested $21 million in Messari, a blockchain analytics startup with an expansive suite of programs. The funding round was part of a larger $200 million fundraising round that saw Messari skyrocket in values and arrive on the doorstep of unicorn status.
This investment speaks to Point72 and Messari’s confidence in their futures. In his statement announcing the deal, Mr. Cohen explained it was based on Messari leading the way forward in financial technology innovation and bringing newfound value to investors everywhere: “Messari is at the frontier of digital asset innovation and creating new levels of trust and transparency within fintech…We believe this will help create important insights into digital assets for all market participants so they can make more informed decisions.”
The investment also offers evidence of Point72’s faith in its ability to leverage technology to maximize returns for its clients; thus, reaffirming its status as one of the world’s premier asset managers and hedge funds. Moreover, it validates their ability to identify high growth potential investments with strong fundamentals. With Steven Cohen personally tapping into this new sector through his firm’s backing of Messari—which closely aligns with his own goals—this move should signal that this area has significant upside potential while providing top-tier security.
Messari’s Future
Messari, a startup focused on bringing transparency to the cryptocurrency industry, recently announced it has raised $21 million in a funding round led by Point72 Ventures, the venture arm of billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen.
With the funds, Messari will continue working towards increasing transparency across the crypto space. Let’s look into how Messari’s plans will benefit the crypto space.
Messari’s plans for the funding
With the Series A funding round Messari raised from a group of venture capital investors led by Hedge Fund Billionaire Steven Cohen’s Point72, the cryptocurrency data startup is set to further develop its platform and products to better serve the crypto community.
Messari has stated that it plans to use the proceeds from this investment round to develop its core infrastructure and create an open-source data library that will help users track tokens and coin supply and render validations for pricing, market cap, and related analytics.
The company also looks to hire new data scientists and engineers, designate funds for product expansion, increase transparency standards in the industry, broaden institutional support beyond financial institutions such as Point72, and promote governance policies that benefit stakeholders in the token economy. Messari also plans to launch an on-chain token registry where developers can register their digital assets within a validating environment promoting transparency.
Messari’s potential impact on the crypto industry
Messari is a blockchain-powered company that provides data and research on the crypto industry. Led by hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen’s Point72, the firm recently raised a $21 million Series A funding round to further its ambitious mission of improving transparency in the cryptocurrency space. With this new injection of funds, Messari looks towards revolutionizing how blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are analyzed, tracked, used and regulated.
Messari’s ultimate goal is to become a top-tier provider of real-time market data for investors and companies that analyze digital assets. In addition, Messari wants to become an authoritative source for policy makers looking to develop regulations around digital assets and blockchain technology. This could result in more efficient policies as it strives towards creating a better overall cryptocurrency ecosystem where users can have trust in their activities and investments.
Messari also seeks to provide investors with a more robust platform for security token investment strategies while still giving them access to thorough regulatory resources through Regulator Blueprints which will help them be better informed before they decide on any transactions or investments they may take part in. In doing so, Messari is looking to create an environment where investors have faith in the system and one that supports greater efficiency/liquidity across markets and less friction when it comes to trial runs of protocols & projects for testing purposes.
Through these different endeavors, Messari has ambitious plans for what it can bring about in terms of further standardization within the cryptocurrency space which will benefit both companies looking into investing into cryptocurrencies & its related technologies and regular users just trying to navigate through this ever-evolving landscape. All these combined factors could lead Messari’s investment round to open up great opportunities within itself and undoubtedly having positive implications far beyond itself within the crypto world at large.
Conclusion
This fundraising round concludes that Messari has secured funding from a reputable investor group that includes one of the world’s leading financial institutions—Hedge Fund Billionaire Steven Cohen’s investment firm, Point72. This investment reflects confidence in Messari and provides an endorsement of its mission. It will undoubtedly help the company achieve its goal of becoming the go-to source for reliable and transparent data on crypto markets and blockchain-powered projects.
With capital now available to support it, Messari is poised to capitalize on its potential to become a key player in the industry.
