We’re excited to announce that the Hashkey Group and SNZ are leading a strategic investment round in Asia for the Blockstack token offering. This strategic round is part of our Reg S offering as disclosed in the offering circular. The strategic round is separate from the SEC-qualified general offering.
Hashkey Group is a leading institutional investment group from Hong Kong. SNZ is founded by a group of individuals with deep roots in crypto communities. Both Hashkey Group and SNZ were instrumental in the early success of crypto projects like Ethereum, not only in China but broadly in Asia.
In addition to the lead investors, we are also excited to welcome IOSG Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Fundamental Labs, Spartan Group, and Tembusu Partners to join as investors and ecosystem building partners.
We are thrilled to have them on board to help Blockstack’s growth across key Asian markets. These key markets include Greater China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.
Blockstack’s Global Vision
The vision of Web 3 – the new era of a user-owned Internet – requires a full-stack computation network: universal login, decentralized storage, computation, and on-chain logic. The Blockstack full-stack decentralized computing network is global and open to anyone in the world. Given the project was founded in the US, our initial backers are US-centric. Early investors include Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, Lux Capital, SV Angel, Digital Currency Group, Naval Ravikant (AngelList founder), and others.
The 2017 token offering brought in new investors including Winklevoss Capital, Foundation Capital, Blockchain Capital, ZhenFund, Huobi Capital, FBG Capital, Michael Arrington (TechCrunch Founder), Kevin Rose (Digg Founder), and other institutional investors.
The 2017 token offering enabled us to diversify our investor base and partner with funds around the world. The 2019 Asian strategic round is the next step towards Blockstack’s global expansion.
Focus on Asia
Asia is an important market for Blockstack, as Asian countries have arguably the most significant penetration for both crypto users and developers.
We’re humbled and excited to have support from a diverse group of long-term investors throughout the Asia region. We see each one of them as a partner who will help grow the global Blockstack ecosystem. Our goal is to advance the Web 3 technology that Blockstack has researched and deployed over the past 5 years.
We currently have over 170 independent applications built on Blockstack, of which almost all come from regions outside of East Asia. We are looking to bring in developers from Asia to our App ecosystem and enable decentralized applications for local Asian markets.
Earlier, we invested in an independent entity in Hong Kong that plans to build a browser for Blockstack. We also announced our partnership with Spartan Group in Singapore. The Asian strategic round led by Hashkey and SNZ marks a new chapter, and we’re excited to expand our developer outreach and grow the Blockstack community and usage in Asia.
More about our new Asia based investors:
Hashkey Group
HashKey Group (HashKey Digital Asset Group Limited) is a leading fintech group based in Hong Kong. Led by a group of financial and technologies veterans, the group focuses on developing various technology solutions including AI, big data, blockchains, and digital assets.
HashKey Capital is a leading blockchain and digital asset manager. They provide accredited and professional investors with secure access and diversified exposure to digital assets. HashKey Capital has a core investment focus on blockchain technology, digital assets, and crypto-financial infrastructures.
SNZ
SNZ is a crypto-fund founded in 2015 by a group of engineers, blockchain evangelists, and entrepreneurs passionate about blockchain tech. As a fund, SNZ has community building in its genes. SNZ brings unique value for its portfolio companies with its hands-on experience working with different communities, including that of institutional investors, developers, retail investors, and users. SNZ has invested in a wide variety of blockchain projects and is a significant player in the “POS” ecosystem and runs staking nodes for 20+ projects.
Fenbushi Capital
Founded in 2015, Fenbushi Capital is the first global venture capital firm that exclusively invests in blockchain-enabled companies. They have consistently been ranked as one of China’s top blockchain funds and invested in over 50 projects in the past 4 years.
IOSG Venture
IOSG Venture is an early-stage fund for decentralized protocols and blockchain companies. It is founded by a community of founders, engineers, and researchers who pool capital, expertise, and networks together to support the world’s most ambitious teams. IOSG Venture team members come from Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Seattle. It has invested in and incubated more than 60 blockchain projects, and operates staking nodes for a number of global top projects such as Cosmos, IoTeX and Kusama.
Fundamental Labs
Fundamental Labs, a US$500mil AUM fund founded in 2016, is a leading venture capital firm focused exclusively on blockchain tech, digital infrastructure, and open financial networks. They are strategic investors in Coinbase and have been an active investor and operator in PoW mining infrastructures globally.
Spartan Group
Spartan Group is a leading Asia-based blockchain advisory and investment firm and Blockstack’s Asia partner. The founders are former tech entrepreneurs, venture investors, and Goldman Sachs finance professionals. Its advisory business provides services to promising startups across the digital asset space, including fundraising, advice on strategy, partnerships and community building. The Spartan Group combines the team’s strong expertise in financial markets with their in-depth knowledge and extensive network within the digital asset industry to generate superior returns for investors.
Tembusu Partners
Tembusu Partners is a leading private equity firm based in Singapore. With their strong team and deep roots in Emerging Asia, they are well-positioned to help portfolio companies develop their businesses and support their growth.
Important disclaimer
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has qualified the offering statement that we have filed with the SEC. The information in that offering statement is more complete than the information we are providing now, and could differ in important ways. You must read the documents filed with the SEC before investing. The offering is being made only by means of its offering statement. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. Any person interested in investing in any offering of Stacks Tokens should review our disclosures and the publicly filed offering statement and the final offering circular that is part of that offering statement here*. Blockstack is not registered, licensed or supervised as a broker dealer or investment adviser by the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) or any other financial regulatory authority or licensed to provide any financial advice or services.*
Forward-looking statements
This communication contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “will,” “expect,” “would,” “intend,” “believe,” or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, statements about our collaborations and partnerships. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different. More information on the factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause or contribute to such differences is included in our filings with the SEC, including in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion & Analysis” sections of our offering statement on Form 1-A. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.