Singapore-based PORTAL Asset Management on Thursday launched a cryptocurrency fund, making a debut in the digital asset industry, The Business Times reported.
Dubbed the Portal Digital Fund, the fund will operate as a fund of funds. It will targeted sophisticated investors, which include high net worth individuals, family offices, and boutique institutional investors in the Asia-Pacific region.
The company has already initiated its fundraising and will continue its efforts until March 31 next year. Though new to the industry, the firm is aiming to manage $100 million worth of assets.
The company is planning to create a diversified portfolio adding four to eight specialist global fund managers.
The report also detailed that the portfolio will be focused on two primary investment streams - the first one being quantitative-driven trading covering systematic, momentum and arbitrage strategies while the other is venture capital and private equity funds investing in Blockchain protocol infrastructure. The fund managers will initially focus on the former strategy because of its higher potential returns.
“With global assets now capable of being digitized, fractionated and traded using blockchain technologies, digital assets are set to become the fourth superclass, joining the traditional classes of store of wealth, capital and goods,” the local newspaper quoted the firm.
A thorough review of the space
Before jumping into the industry, the company spent the last two years aggregating over 700 digital asset fund managers and reviewing around 100, using a macro-thematic top-down investment process combined with a fundamental bottom-up investment analysis approach.
“The inevitable adoption of sovereign and enterprise Cryptocurrencies and the rapid proliferation of blockchain solutions across all industries, are fundamentally reshaping the global financial economy,” Deryck Graham, founder and CEO of the fund, said.
Meanwhile, Sygnum, a crypto-focused banking startup, recently gained a capital markets services (CMS) license from the Singaporean regulator, allowing it to offer digital asset-based investment products in the Southeast Asian country.
