Founding Partner @ANT_Capital
Hodophile as well as Foodie

Introducing A&T Capital

Hi everyone, it has been one year since we established our fund. In 2021, we raised $100M from some of the world’s largest Fintech groups and have been investing into web3 startups from pre-seed to series B. On this first anniversary, we would like to introduce A&T Capital in more detail.

## Who we are and what drives us

A&T Capital is led by three founding partners based out of Berlin, Singapore and Shanghai, and supported by a global dynamic team of researchers and analysts .We have a proven investment track records into crypto since 2014. Our varied backgrounds in high tech, TradFi and venture capital help us understand what is essential for a startup to succeed. We have witnessed the evolution of the crypto space, worked a broad spectrum of use cases and are determined to provide long term support to our portfolio companies!

The following developments and observations have shaped how we approach the market:

* Disruptive New Talents

As L1’s rise in prominence and number, new talents are attracted to the industry. While not being crypto-native, their operational excellence, capability to scale and proven go-to-market strategies have proven vital to help projects grow faster and bigger. The space has never be more background agnostic and welcoming; attracting talents with various interest with the depth and breadth of skills needed to drive the industry to the next level.

We therefore strongly welcome new talents and actively support projects with fresh, new perspectives. To us, the excellence of the founding team is more important than the crypto legacy it comes from.

* Disruption Through Regulatory Uncertainty

Even though we do not like to admit it, governments around the world still have not settled on how to approach decentralised technologies and every small change in policy can have a deep and immediate impact on the industry. After all, we are still early adopters and it will take several (failed) iterations for best practices to emerge.

China once hosted around 75% bitcoin’s hash rate. Given the country’s circumstances (supply of tech-savvy entrepreneurs, affordable energy prices and general innovation drive) it seemed like China would remain a dominant player in crypto mining. A vibrant ecosystem of investors, projects and user base flourished until May 2021, when China’s state council announced a crackdown on cryptocurrency mining (and later token transfer in general) forcing the industry to relocate.

Germany was the first country to recognise bitcoin as a ‘unit of account’ in 2013. It attracted early builders and communities many significant projects emerged from this. In 2020, when the pandemic hit Europe and companies were forced to work remotely, the strong network effects of crypto hubs such as Berlin were severely reduced and lost most of its appeal. This led to the creation of new hubs such as Lisbon, which successfully attracted founders with tax benefits and lower costs of living.

Having seen several hubs come and go, we aim to support projects that are flexible in the way they approach their labor force, with founders that have international appeal and experience and can navigate an uncertain and ever changing regulatory framework.

* Investment Value Besides Capital

Capital is cheap. The real value of an investment comes from the benefits, resources and support the investor can provide to the project. Investor confidence in crypto has increased significantly over the year. In 2018 only a handful of projects would have been able to get attention from the established institutional investors. Since 2020, we consistently see institutional investors active even in early stage investments. The space certainly got more crowded and barriers for funding have been reduced.

Launching our fund in such a competitive environment is an exciting prospect. We are uniquely positioned to support promising decentralised startups to realise their full disruptive potential through our understandings across differe