Bitpanda, an Austrian-born fintech scaleup, and investment manager LeadBlock have announced that they have launched a €50 million joint fund called LeadBlock Bitpanda Ventures (LBV), to invest in early-stage digital asset startups globally, with a focus on Europe. Both organizations believe that the industry is at an inflection point, the previous round of investment focused on building a robust, efficient, and secure decentralized infrastructure. LBV will focus on the growth drivers underpinning the next crypto cycle: the middleware and application layers, and the user-oriented interfaces that contribute to mainstream web3 adoption. Key verticals include modular technology, TradFi (traditional finance) and CeDeFi (centralized – decentralized finance) bridges, on-chain experiences/apps, blockchain/AI intersection. In this partnership, the LeadBlock team will bring its global network and expertise across all operational and investment aspects. The Bitpanda team will complement this effort by bringing its knowledge, extensive network, and deep understanding of the European cryptocurrency space. Eric Demuth, founder and CEO of Bitpanda, commented in a statement: “Our goal is to support founders of blockchain and top-tier digital assets globally. To achieve this, we offer these companies access to our unrivalled network and expertise. As a European leader, we have extensive experience, strict regulatory compliance, and the broadest licensing portfolio across the continent. Navigating the European market can be challenging due to its fragmentation, but we’ve shown how to scale in this environment as well. We look forward to integrating the startups we invest in into our ecosystem, so they can use our resources to scale their business.”
Investments between €250,000 and €2 million
LBV will invest in top-tier startups in the digital assets sector, with amounts ranging from €250,000 to €2 million. The fund will participate in seed and pre-listing rounds and will focus on supporting the founders starting from the creation of the first protocol/product, through the scaling process, and finally, the launch of the token and mass adoption. LBV’s vision is to unlock even greater access to blockchain and digital assets for the next billion users, without friction. A core tenet of the fund is that blockchain innovation will enable a new paradigm in which users will be given back ownership and control of their economic and governance rights in the digital world. David Chreng-Messembourg, Founding Partner of LeadBlock, says, “When I sat down with Paul and Eric, we always praised the value of a specialist VC investor who can financially and operationally support founders in the early stages of their journey. With this fund and our partnership with Bitpanda, we will provide 360-degree support to founders, from inception to the launch of the product or token, thanks to our expertise and network of strategic partners – liquidity providers, exchanges, security companies, L1/L2 protocols, funds, DAOs, KOLs.” Paul Klanschek, Co-Founder and CEO of Bitpanda, adds: “Together, we have what it takes to drive the growth of European operators even more than ever before. LeadBlock is Europe’s leading blockchain and crypto investor, Bitpanda is the most regulated and leading crypto broker in Europe. We will leverage Bitpanda’s product and market expertise and LeadBlock’s investment know-how to help the industry accelerate its growth.” (Photo by Jievani Weerasinghe on Unsplash )
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©