Mets owner Steven Cohen's firm, Point72, makes first crypto investment
Mets owner Steven Cohen's venture capital unit, Point72, made its first cryptocurrency investment. Credit: Bloomberg/Scott Eells
New York Mets owner Steven Cohen's venture capital unit has taken the plunge into the emerging cryptocurrency market.
The venture capital arm of Cohen's Point72 LLP made its first cryptocurrency investment, joining with other investors to provide $21 million to Messari, a crypto analytics firm.
Manhattan-based Messari provides advanced cryptocurrency tools for financial professionals.
In connection with the funding announced last week, Adam Carson, an operating partner at Stamford, Connecticut-based Point72 Ventures, has joined Messari's board of directors.
"Point72 Ventures is an ideal partner for us as we work to onboard new legacy financial institutions to our products," Ryan Selkis, Messari's co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement. "Thousands of investors, crypto enterprises, and token projects already rely on our products and services to conduct industry diligence and participate in the emerging crypto economy."
Messari, founded in 2018, said the funding would be used to triple the size of its engineering and research teams and advance the recent rollout of a product designed to simplify the integration of new cryptocurrency assets for institutional customers.
Point72 Ventures, the largest contributor to the funding round, was joined by new investors, including Alameda Research, Blockchain Ventures, CMS Holdings, Gemini Frontier Fund, Kraken Ventures and Winklevoss Capital, the investment vehicle of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the former Harvard crew athletes portrayed in the movie "The Social Network" and the book "Bitcoin Billionaires."
Participating existing investors included Coinbase Ventures, Uncork Capital and Underscore VC.
"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 advanced investors need," Carson said in a statement. "Messari is filling that much-needed space."
Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
