Michael Arrington / Photo Credit: Arrington XRP Capital
Arrington XRP Capital, a digital asset management firm focused on blockchain-based capital markets founded by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, has received a $30 million investment from one of its largest limited partners. In an interview with CoinDesk, Arrington said that the fund has surpassed the initial target of raising $100 million.
“The reason is, like everyone, we didn’t do particularly great last year, but we did better than the market. And that was a win,” said Arrington in the interview. Arrington first announced that he was raising $100 million for a fund that would buy and hold crypto assets and make investments in token sales and equities and debt at CoinDesk’s Consensus: Invest event in New York in November 2017.
With the investment, Arrington XRP Capital is acquiring an Australia-based fund called ByteSize Capital — which was founded by brothers Ninos Mansor and Ninor Mansor. Both of them are joining Arrington XRP as partners. Arrington XRP co-founder and partner Geoffrey Arone is also moving to an advisory role.
Ninos Mansor appreciated the experience that Arrington and Arrington XRP partner Heather Harde had together. Harde is the former CEO of TechCrunch who helped turn the brand into a major media company.
With the ByteSize acquisition, it will enable to fund to operationalize a “barbell strategy,” which is designed for an uncertain market and venture investments are balanced with crypto trading. The trading should improve the fund performance in bear and bull markets, but the venture investments will continue to be the major emphasis.
Although Arrington XRP saw some losses in 2018 due to funds being left in crypto (not poor venture investments), the addition of the Mansors is expected to fix that. Arrington told CoinDesk that they did not have the “DNA to do trading,” but now they will with the Mansors.
Some of the companies in the Arrington XRP Capital portfolio includes Spacemesh, Wireline, Lottery.com, Refereum, Telegram, Bloom, Doc.ai, and Ripple.
