Hong Kong-based Seedcoin, which bills itself as the world’s first seed-stage virtual incubator for Bitcoin startups, got things going earlier this week by launching its Seedcoin Fund.
The fund (or SFI) launched on the Havelock Investments Bitcoin securities platform, and “the funds in Bitcoin raised through this public offering will be invested in a diversified portfolio of international Bitcoin startups to be incubated by Seedcoin,” the Havelock Investments website reads.
Funds raised will be distributed among the participating startups, and SFI investors will receive Bitcoin dividends.
Seedcoin co-founder Eddy Travia is a Hong Kong-based expat who helped organized Singapore’s first Bitcoin conference back in November. According to Travia, Seedcoin had already received 60 applications from startups, and it planned to work with about 15 of them. Startups included Bitcoin wallets, exchanges and payment processors, he said.
Participating startups include GoCoin, a payment processing platform; Hive, a Bitcoin wallet for mobile users; and MEXBT.com, the first personal cryptocurrency exchange in Mexico.
Seedcoin’s goal, Travia said, is to fund startups from around the world, including those in developed, modern economies and those founded in places without easy access to modern financial instruments or investors.
Seedcoin’s location in Singapore is also auspicious. As we reported earlier this week, the government of Singapore is taking a hands-off approach to Bitcoin and Bitcoin-based businesses.
“Whether or not businesses accept Bitcoins in exchange for their goods and services is a commercial decision in which MAS does not intervene,” officials from the Monetary Authority of Singapore said this week.