Nick Hill on Invictus Capital’s approach to cryptocurrency fund investing

0:01I'm Ashlyn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Nick Hill the Business Development Manager from Invictus capital welcome to the show Nick it's a pleasure to have you here great thank you so much class to be joining you so Nick let's talk a little bit about Invictus capital could you

0:22give us an overview of the company and the solutions that you guys are providing right now great yeah so Invictus capital provides investment products and investment services so we're positioning ourselves as being the kind of investment bank of the crypto world so we were built off the back of a product called crypto 20 which was one of the first index

0:44products in the cryptocurrency space and the team who built that discover that there was a need in the market to develop sophisticated financial products for for your retail investors so like index funds or venture capital funds which would give diversification access to to investors so that was really the beginning of the of the company and we've since the the products

1:07have moved into offering service as well as well because we invest in in blockchain startups through our venture capital arm we also work very close to you with them in terms of offering strategic advice token economics structuring regulation yes or suite of services to help them launch their blockchain projects so we really position ourselves as I said at the

1:34beginning is as a company that looks at both investment products in the fund space as well as services to blockchain startups that's a great explanation Thank You Nick I'm really interested in learning a little bit more about on the fun side you know you mentioned you have the crypto 20 fund which is you know a newer fund it cryptocurrency funds in general or still I've seen very

1:56different experiments of how you can build funds is this the only fun that you guys have or do you guys have other products as well no so we the Invictus capsule was incepted from from the icy era of c20 so the team the team used their data science background it's really build the mechanics around how the fund would rebalance so it's very difficult than

2:20the traditional finance space to rebalance funds I'm frequently but in the cryptocurrency space you can do it as often as you know there's the quiddity for the particular coin so we we as decided and weekly rebalancing would be prudence but you know with the way funds are constructed in terms of custodian rebalancing it's it's quite consistent so the team has used that

2:42knowledge to now in the last few months build out a new set of funds but this is specifically for institutional investors so the new funds that we're looking at now are our index funds that's top 20 of the top 10 cryptocurrencies but also provide a cash hedge for institutional investors so in the event that there's significant market downturn like we've

3:04seen in the last couple of months more of the funds assets will be softened into cash as the market see declines but as soon as there's a pickup and bull market returns more of the funds assets moved back into the top ten cryptocurrencies so it's got quite nice fun mechanics in that sense that's great to hear so if more like VCS other investors fund managers are looking to

3:30get involved with Invictus capital I did see an investor portal on your guys's website is that what you guys are leading people to and you know what is what exactly is in the investors portal so the investor portal is mainly for our retail investors so investors who would like to invest in either our ia chip which is our venture capital fund or it's for investors who would like to

3:56invest and c20 which is our the tokenized index fund that we law which is our first product we launched in terms of partnering of VCS or similar family offices that are looking to get into the crypto space we offer much more kind of bespoke services so with VCS what we like to do is partner with VCS and co invest in in startups so as I mentioned one of our funds as a venture capital

4:25fund and we've invested in and soon to be ten projects to date so we like to build relations with venture capitalists so the vet the investor portal that we have on our websites not really for our RBC's is much more for our retail investors but we do look to to partner with with VCS on deals that that are kind of early-stage and in the blockchain space and that's also similar

4:50with family offices we're looking to get into crypto the investor portal on our website is more for our retail investors but with family offices and large for institutional investors we like to once again establish a much more bespoke agreement with them so that we can facilitate for example in the institutional space their investments in our you know index funds that I

5:10mentioned earlier you know the exposure to the top 10 cryptocurrencies so so in that respect the the investor portal is more for our retail investors well well it still sounds like a really good resource so that's great that that's available yeah so you guys are also you know you're incubating projects and you have a bunch of funds you know how much how much

5:34capital do you guys have involved in these funds and you know what kind of capital do you guys have to incubate different projects that you're looking to get involved with well in terms of assets under management so when the ico for crypto 20 was launched at the end of the last year the total funds raised is in the region of 40 million dollars and that of course is

5:53dependent on the actual assets that the index fund holds so as the market Rises at one point the fund was worth you know upwards of 100 million dollars but now at the market decline because the underlying assets and the Thunder are based on the crypto currency market the fund asks we have an amount and a management on the index fund are in the region of 20 million dollars also

6:16in terms of the hyperion which is our venture capital fund we originally raised 11 and a half million dollars in an IC o—- in May specifically to invest in in blockchain start-ups we've invested almost all that funding today's although we have a little bit left in liquidity to invest in particular promising projects and we invested anywhere in the region of you

6:41know so you to $500,000 upwards of two up to you know one and a half million dollars so so that is that was really the the funding the funding that we look to deploy but the assets under management in the in the in the venture capital found are quite difficult to value because there isn't any liquidity necessarily for those tokens we've invested in often their seed stage

7:05projects so you'll complete the pour the capsule and need those projects to to list their tokens on the exchange before you can unlock liquidity and get some kind of pricing mechanism for for the value of the funds under management but yeah we raised as I mentioned we raised one eleven and a half million dollars in the ICO in May I'm so that with the funding that we had available

7:24for deploy and as I said almost all of which has been the in deployed today its borrowing as I said a little bit of liquidity for for very very promising projects and that would be in the investment region of sort of two to three hundred thousand dollars that's awesome that's a wonderful summary Thank You Nick so I'm also I'm also very interested in the educational content

7:45you know I this is one of the projects you guys are coming out with now you guys are producing some educational video content is it you know what do you guys producing and who are you targeting this content to yeah so the education the education arm really came out of questions that we were getting from our community members just in relation to interesting projects that they they

8:09weren't sure whether they should invest in and and you know weren't sure exactly how to how to go to about evaluating good investments and the team that we have in the office is a combination of software developers engineers and financial professionals so it's really interesting skillsets and when we having now seen throughout our startup application portal on our

8:34website and through our network while over 200 applications for funding from from blockchain startups so we do see a diverse set of projects I'm so analyst skill you know the valuating project is you know it's quite strong from all the experience that we've had and we felt that this was a a skill that we could pass on to our community it's but also the the kind of broader

8:57crypto market because we do feel that the skill in the market or at least the knowledge base isn't quite there at the moments a lot of the courses aren't there currently are on you know either software developing and in the blockchain space or trading cryptocurrencies but nothing related in relation to providing a framework of hard to evaluate crypto

9:17assets themselves so we've designed a course which we launched in quite soon in providing investors a framework in which they can can use to look at different token types and use various valuation tools to determine whether or not the project is worth worth investing in a lot with a long term view in mind so as I mentioned a lot of the previous cryptocurrency courses have been trading

9:42in nature so you know looking at technical analysis whereas our course of much more focus on fundamental analysis for example looking at team looking at different valuation metrics as I said to determine whether or not this project has longevity and will be around for for the long term because that's the kind of mindset you need to approach you know especially early-stage

10:03blockchain projects so we thought that this these are the kinds of skills that we we felt that we could pass on as long as well as our industry experience and the courses then really marketed to anyone who's a crypto currency trader or investor or enthusiast as well as your traditional world analysts so what we're finding you know being an investment

10:26vestments entity I'm in pro Qing institutional investors they lack the knowledge of how to enter and how to get involved in the cryptocurrencies space so this kind of course is perfect for you know traditional world analysts to perhaps work so maybe the equities with or the fixed income I'm streaming that but once a way in which they can get a broad understanding the crypto

10:47mark help kind of how it's insulin and what valuation techniques you know you can apply to the various tokens as a way to enter that space so I would say of course is marketing as I said the the people who are involved in cryptocurrencies are already the traders the enthusiasts as well as your traditional world analysts who are very interested in getting involved in the

11:09space yeah as institutional invest is moving into the markets that's great Nick I think you guys hit the nail right on the head you know where you mentioned that there's definitely a need for further education in the cryptocurrency industry and that as well it's been very developer focused so yeah is this a one-off video content piece you guys are producing or will this be a continual

11:35thing moving forward yeah so we're as I said based on the skill set here and what we're seeing in the industry the interesting thing about the cryptocurrency market is it's very difficult to build a once-off education course given the the flux that is constantly in so we see ourselves building out an education series but there's very framework driven so so once

11:58again although the market itself might be changing we want to give our community and our users who all eye learners will take the course a framework that they can apply over years you know that for example how you evaluate team members and their experience or the tools that you can use to evaluate these projects should be the same for the next five to ten years so

12:18we want to give a framework that you can use to to investors to help them to help guide that guide them as the market develops so and we will be looking to build out a diverse set of courses but the idea is that this first course we're running is a real introduction to the market itself and how and the various components in that market and the subsequent courses will

12:44do much more of a deep dive into each of those subsets and and use cases and potentially see for example how block chains are being applied and in businesses or you know how how our token raises can be done most effectively because we've touched on you know as a company we've been involved in each of those practices so it would make sense that we could pass on this knowledge to

13:05the community given our industry expertise and skills that's great so when do you expect the first piece to be live and how can people follow along and get involved you know with this content so the first piece you expect to be live in the middle well early December we're just we're in the in the final stages of touching up and making sure everything's

13:32I'm ready the course would be hosted on udemy there's already a quite an active community group to user base on on udemy so you know we thought it was also a good way of introducing people who not aware of what we're doing it Invictus to to our company and our community so I will share with you a link to the current signup page that we have now if you sign up to that page you're gonna

13:56get a 50% discount on the course so it's a great incentive to get in early and the course as I mentioned yet will be live early December and we hope to rolling out many courses throughout next year depending on on of course what the demand is from our student base awesome that's wonderful Nick and thank you for the promotion that's always an added bonus I'm really looking forward to

14:17seeing what kind of content you guys produce you know and as a Content producer I'm always excited to see you know efficient concise educational content in this space because as you said there's really a need for it right now so I thank you for your time that's all the time we have for today I would love to follow up with a further interview when you guys have produced

14:36your content in 2019 in the beginning we'll see you know what's on the roadmap for 2019 and how Invictus capital will grow so thank you so much for your time Nick alright thank you so much for seeing me