Holding $1.2 billion in assets but already running out of ammunition, is 10T Holdings becoming the white knight for early investors?

With $1.2 billion in assets, 10T Holdings may become the savior for early investors despite depleting resources.

Original author: Zen, LianGuaiNews

During the bear market, venture capital interest in cryptocurrencies has significantly slowed down. 10T Holdings, a well-known cryptocurrency investment institution with three funds under its management, is currently running out of resources. With $1.2 billion in assets under management, the institution can only wait for the next bull market or further opening up of cryptocurrency IPOs. However, the two founders behind it are currently raising funds for their respective new funds and will continue to focus on the cryptocurrency industry.

The name “10T” of 10T comes from founder Dan Tapiero’s expectations for the cryptocurrency industry. In 2019, he predicted that the total market value of cryptocurrencies would grow 30 times and eventually reach $10 trillion. Therefore, he named his cryptocurrency investment fund 10T. Unlike other digital asset funds such as LianGuairadigm, 10T focuses on investing in companies in the middle and later stages of the digital asset ecosystem. In his view, there are many venture capital funds that provide financing for seed and early-stage companies, but there are almost no funds dedicated to providing late-stage funding and liquidity. 10T provides liquidity directly to early-stage funds and investors who hope to gain some chips from early-stage investments. Therefore, as an “acquirer” for early-stage investors, 10T undoubtedly chose the “Hard” mode for itself.

Since the launch of its first fund in early 2021, 10T Holdings has a total of three funds, managing $1.2 billion in assets. Through the primary and secondary markets, 10T invests in mature companies operating at scale, and its investment portfolio mostly consists of well-known companies and projects in the cryptocurrency industry, such as Ledger, Kraken, eToro, Yuga Labs, Helium developer Nova Labs, Deribit, and Animoca Brands.

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Core Team of 10T Holdings

As a long-time advocate of gold and bitcoin, renowned investor Dan Tapiero has 30 years of experience in macro and commodity investment and trading, research and economics, and entrepreneurship. He is the core of 10T Holdings, serving as Managing Partner, CEO, and CIO. Tapiero has extensive relationships in the institutional investment management field. Before founding 10T, he founded the global macro investment fund DTAP Capital Advisors in 2003, followed by the physical precious metals platform Gold Bullion International (GBI) in 2014. The core similarity between bitcoin theory and physical gold helped him recognize the potential for growth in the digital asset ecosystem.

In 2013, Dan Tapiero began to pay attention to bitcoin, but initially sold it due to its small market value and the idea of it being a “plaything” for venture capital. As the cryptocurrency field developed, he realized that he had overlooked the value of bitcoin and his concept transformed into believing that it could become a financial system, becoming a staunch supporter and evangelist.

In February 2021, Tapiero launched a $200 million fund, 10T, officially entering the cryptocurrency industry. In September of the same year, 10T’s two funds, 10T Fund and 10T DAE ExLianGuainsion Fund, have received capital commitments of nearly $389 million together, bringing the total capital raised by 10T for its strategic plans to nearly $750 million, including co-investments and sub-advisors. At the end of the same year, 10T launched its third digital asset investment fund, aiming to raise $500 million, but the actual amount raised was not publicly disclosed. 10T’s investors include diversified asset allocators, not only high-net-worth individuals, but also public pension plans, endowments, foundations, and family offices, including the Michigan Municipal Employees’ Retirement System and Alan Howard.

Stan Miroshnik, a partner and co-founder of 10T, has nearly 20 years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance, and venture capital, and has established deep global relationships with entrepreneurs, companies, regulatory agencies, fintech, and blockchain investors in the digital asset ecosystem. Stan focuses on fintech and digital asset sectors and is a prolific early-stage investor, having served as an advisor and board member for several early-stage companies. He was the Managing Director of Element / Actual Group, an investment bank focused on digital assets, and Tangent Capital LianGuairtners, as well as the CEO of The Argon Group, a digital financial investment bank specializing in the crypto capital market.

In addition to Dan and Stan, several other partners of 10T have rich experience and connections in the investment field. Eric Vincent is a partner and president of 10T, with over 25 years of experience in creating, developing, and managing alternative asset management companies. Before joining 10T, Eric served as the Head of Business Development at Mubadala Capital, the alternative investment arm of the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company. Joe Majocha is a partner and CFO of 10T, having served as Managing Director at Two Sigma Investments and Chief Operating Officer and CFO of Two Sigma’s private investment division. Additionally, Michael J. Dubilier, a partner and vice chairman of 10T, entered the investment field in 1983 and has over 30 years of experience in private equity and direct investments in industrial, consumer, and technology companies, as well as entrepreneurship.

10T has deployed all funds, both founders establish their own funds this year

At the beginning of this year, there were internal changes in 10T. Tapiero stated in an interview with The Block in February that 10T will no longer seek any further funding and will not launch new 10T funds. The two founders have chosen to go their separate ways and establish their own funds. According to LinkedIn information, Tapiero and Miroshnik have established investment firms in January of this year, but they still retain their positions in 10T. According to Bloomberg’s report in May of this year, anonymous sources stated that 10T Holdings has deployed all the funds previously raised. Therefore, 10T is facing the dilemma of having no funds left and can only focus on the post-investment work of previous investments and wait for exits.

According to The Block’s news in February, Tapiero said he is establishing his own private equity company, 1 RoundTable LianGuairtners (referred to as “1 RT”), with the goal of raising $1 billion in funding by the end of the third quarter. It has already received support from well-known investors such as Alan Howard, known as the “Macro God”.

As an evolution and continuation of 10T Holdings’ investment strategy, the core team of 1 RT mostly comes from 10T. Tapiero invited 10T partners Michael Dubilier and Eric Vincent to join, and Joe Majocha continues to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of 1 Rountable. In addition, Tapiero has recruited former Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith as an advisory partner. In terms of investment strategy, 1 RT still focuses on mid- to long-term digital asset companies with significant potential for price appreciation in the next 5 to 10 years. According to relevant materials, 1 RT’s flagship fund will have a 5-year investment period and a 10-year fund term, with investment focuses roughly divided into three categories: new-era digital asset ecosystems, digital asset ecosystem infrastructure, and metaverse categories, including companies focusing on NFTs.

Another co-founder of 10T, Stan Miroshnik, has also started his own venture. In May of this year, the new cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm TenSquared Capital (referred to as “10 SQ”) was reported by Bloomberg to be seeking to raise $200 million. According to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Stan Miroshnik serves as CEO and Managing Partner of 10 SQ, and several former 10T executives have also joined him. Unlike 10T’s focus on mid- to long-term projects, 10 SQ, led by the expertise of early-stage investing from Stan Miroshnik, intends to support crypto projects at various stages through equity investments. With the funds already raised, 10 SQ has made two investments, including a startup company focused on cryptocurrency wallet infrastructure.

Investing in Star Projects and Bullish on Crypto IPOs

10T specializes in investing in mid- to long-term projects in the digital asset ecosystem, with relatively large funding rounds. For example, three projects that 10T has led in investments this year, the smallest being Blockworks with $12 million announced in May, while QuickNode and AI Metaverse have secured $60 million and $54 million respectively.

Most of 10T’s invested projects have matured and have considerable recognition within the industry. Companies in its investment portfolio such as Circle, eToro, and Kraken have been preparing for IPOs in recent years, and 10T also aims to exit through initial public offerings (IPOs). However, due to the impact of the cryptocurrency bear market and obstacles posed by strict regulatory scrutiny, these companies have not successfully gone public yet. But Tapiero remains optimistic about the prospects of crypto companies going public, believing that the second half of 2024 and 2025 may be a good time, and predicts that there will be some cryptocurrency companies going public by then.

Metaverse & NFT

• Animoca Brands: Metaverse gaming and venture capital giant.

• Candy Digital: Developer of NFTs, official digital collectibles partner of Major League Baseball, Netflix, WWE, Getty Images, and Race Team Alliance.

• Doodles: Community-driven NFT brand.

• Futureverse: AI-based metaverse startup that integrates 11 metaverse infrastructure and content companies into a collaborative ecosystem, providing the basic components for building metaverse applications.

• Yuga Labs: Developer of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), also owns CryptoPunks and Meebits IP.

Infrastructure & Tools

• Bitfury: Blockchain infrastructure provider that develops and offers software and hardware solutions for secure asset transfer on the blockchain for enterprises, governments, organizations, and individuals.

• CertiK: Blockchain security and code auditing firm that uses artificial intelligence technology to protect and monitor blockchain protocols and smart contracts.

• Figment: Blockchain infrastructure and service provider that offers enterprise-grade node and staking infrastructure, Hubble Web 3 browser, and developer tools.

• Qredo: Encryption custody and settlement technology company that provides decentralized encryption custody protected by multi-party computation (MPC).

• QuickNode: Blockchain infrastructure company that provides node infrastructure and application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers.

• Ledger: Cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider.

• Nova Labs: Development company behind the Helium blockchain. Helium is a decentralized wireless network.

• InfStones: Blockchain infrastructure provider that supports thousands of nodes on over 50 public blockchains through its universal platform.

Financial Assets:

• Huobi: Cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2013.

• Gemini: Cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2014.

• Kraken: Cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011.

• 2TM Group: Brazilian cryptocurrency company, operates Mercado Bitcoin exchange founded in 2013.

• Deribit: Cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform, also the world’s largest institutional-grade cryptocurrency options exchange.

• eToro: Social trading and investment network that allows users to watch the financial trading activities of other users, copy those activities, and conduct their own trades.

• Circle: Developer and issuer of stablecoin USDC.

• Figure: Blockchain lending company that utilizes the Provenance blockchain for loan origination, equity management, private fund services, banking, and payments.

• Ledn: Canadian cryptocurrency lending platform.

Other:

• Blockworks: A news media and information platform that includes features such as website editing, current affairs newsletters, podcasts, conferences, research, and data platforms.

• TRM Labs: A blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, cryptocurrency companies, and government agencies detect and investigate financial crimes and fraud related to cryptocurrencies.

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