Algo Capital to invest $100M in promising firms created on Algorand Platform

Blockchain-centered venture capital group Algo Capital has launched a $100 million fund to invest and manage considerable capital in rising disruptors built on the Algorand decentralized platform over the course of next 10 years, according to a press release CoinReport received from Wachsman, Algo Capital’s PR firm.

The platform, a first-of-its-kind blockchain and cryptocurrency purpose-built for business, was designed by Turing Award winner, cryptography pioneer and MIT professor Silvio Micali. The VC group funds up-and-coming firms at all stages that are building solutions on the platform, with a primary focus on firms developing financial technology applications.

Algorand is also an investor in Algo Capital, allowing the VC group to autonomously direct the fund while working as an essential piece of the growth of the Algorand ecosystem. To further support the firms they engage with, the VC group’s leadership team will set up a blockchain laboratory to offer businesspeople and developers resources and tools to assist them in developing on the Algorand platform.

“The launch of Algo Capital signifies an invaluable opportunity to support and grow some of the world’s most promising startups that are building on the business blockchain of the future,” said Algo Capital managing partner Arul Murugan in the news release we received. “We believe that value in the overall Algorand ecosystem will be captured by building real business and uses cases upon it, bringing hundreds of millions of users to wider blockchain adoption. Algo Capital looks forward to enabling and supporting entrepreneurs to leverage the unique benefits of the Algorand platform in innovative ways that will change the world.”

A varied leadership group of four founding partners manages the fund. They have over 60 years of combined experience in venture capital, blockchain technology and crypto investment. Murugan, one of the partners, is also the founder and former CEO of Enrich, a worldwide leader in oracle procurement software-as-a-service, and managing partner of blockchain-centered venture capital company 11-11 Ventures. Another partner is David Garcia, who previously worked as managing director partner of Ripio and as partner at one of the first digital asset funds in Latin America.

“I have been active in this space for more than five years as an entrepreneur and investor,” said Garcia. “I’ve had the opportunity to learn what succeeds and what fails, beyond just the technology. We invested in Algorand due to the outstanding technical and business leadership of its team. We also recognized the massive potential and have joined forces with others to launch Algo Capital to capitalize the potential of the Algorand ecosystem.”

Algorand announced in November last year the closure of a $62 million equity investment, a round in which Algo Capital was a lead investor. Moreover, the firm hired senior executives W. Sean Ford as COO and Steven Kokinos as CEO to assist in launching the blockchain. Ford was previously senior vice president and CMO at one of the world’s top 10 public SaaS firms LogMeIn, Inc., while Kokinos is the founder of global, cloud-based unitified communications platform Fuze.

“The launch of the Algo Capital fund demonstrates the momentum of the technology that Silvio Micali has been developing for the past several years,” said Kokinos. “Algo Capital and its supporting lab will accelerate opportunities for developers and businesses to realize the potential of Algorand’s protocol for a truly global and decentralized economy. We look forward to seeing first-hand the innovative projects that will develop out of the Algo Capital fund.”

Image – via Algorand’s Twitter profile