Former senior manager at management consultancy firm Bain & Co, Roberto Ponce Romay, has launched a Crypto Assets Fund (CAF) to attract investments from wealthy families in the Latin American region.
The fund initially aims to raise $50 million to purchase cryptocurrencies for family businesses. According to Romay, the fund will directly invest in digital currencies as Ripple, Ethereum, Zcash,Litecoin, Dash, and Bitcoin.
Allowing diversification
Romay said in an interview that the CAF will have two purposes, namely, to provide an investment platform to investors in some of the more unstable economies in the region to hedge their investments, and to offer an opportunity to know more about the various digital currencies as new stores of value and prospective investments in the future.
"This fund is investor driven. It is a simple strategy to give access to a new way to invest.”
The British Virgin Islands-based CAF co-founders are David Garcia of Bitcoin payments startup company Ripio, and ARG Capital partner Miguel Iribarne.
Since savings is no longer a smart option
The fund will allow new cryptocurrency asset investors to invest their money in cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin and Ethereum. The service will be free, but 30% of the carried interest will be taken by the fund based on certain criteria.
As of July 2017, Garcia and Iribarne are already soliciting money from registered family office investors in Latin American countries as Argentina and Costa Rica. Garcia banks on the fact that family investors in Latin America are looking for ways to earn more money, as well as a strategy to hedge against the less stable traditional fiat currencies.
"Storing their savings in the local currency is not a smart option.”
The CAF funds will be held by Xapo, with over-the-counter trading services to be managed by B2C2 OTC, an electronic market maker, and a British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-appointed representative.