New Zealand gets its first crypto VC fund
The interest in investing in crypto is global, and now a New Zealand crypto VC fund wants to be part of the action.
The fund, launched by VC Global from Day 1 (GD1) is a very modest fund by overseas standards. With $5 million in the kitty, the fund won’t be making the billion-dollar investments as some of its peers, but it nonetheless represents the nation’s first foray into this new form of entrepreneurship.
And, it’s worth noting that on the entrepreneurship side, New Zealand already has several notable companies. Veve is perhaps the most exciting, as a company that makes NFTs for enterprise and has recently signed a deal with Marvel, but local success stories also include Easy Crypto, which, as the name suggests, aims to make buying and selling crypto easier for consumers, and Fluf World, a metaverse space for people to hang out with digital rabbits.
Nawaz Ahmed, an angel investor and general partner for the new fund, said that the VC was there to help local companies develop without need to rely on overseas funding. “The point of the fund is to support the local ecosystem while also being able to invest in great offshore opportunities and be able to provide our LPs with the best opportunities across the world,” Nuwaz said in an interview with TechCrunch.
The fund is looking to invest between $100,000 and $200,000 into between 25 and 30 pre-seed through Series A companies. The scope is broad and the fund is looking to work with companies in decentralized finance, NFTs, Web3 and crypto infrastructure.
