Venture capitalist Peter Thiel is reportedly backing a crypto broker-dealer startup using Founders Fund, his venture capital vehicle.
The PayPal co-founder is also an investor in Facebook and Airbnb and is known for taking on political causes. What is making the headlines today, however, is more of the financial kind rather than political.
The startup in question is in very early stages and is called Tagomi Systems. The startup’s goal is to improve the cryptocurrency industry by applying Wall Street electronic trading strategies. In particular, the startup plans to connect all cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide, making it easy for traders and investors to manage their investments. With this premise, Tagomi Systems hopes to entice established investors to support their endeavor.
At this point, Peter Thiel does not seem to have a personal connection with Tagomi Systems – at least not publicly. It is the fact that Napoleon Ta – a Founders Fund partner – is included in Tagomi Systems’ list of directors (as declared in a March regulatory filing) that points to Thiel’s involvement in the startup’s funding.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Thiel’s direct involvement comes to light down the road. After all, the entrepreneur is a vocal advocate of Bitcoin and has considerable investment in the cryptocurrency.
In fact, his statement about Bitcoin in October last year caused quite a stir:
“I’m skeptical of most of them (cryptocurrencies), I do think people are a little bit … underestimating bitcoin especially because … it’s like a reserve form of money, it’s like gold, and it’s just a store of value. You don’t need to use it to make payments…If bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold it has a great potential left.”
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