The Central Investment Hub for the Zilliqa Blockchain Ecosystem.
Zilliqa Capital Pte. Ltd. is a blockchain investment company that invests in next-generation FinTech, Open Finance and Decentralised Finance solutions across the APAC region, with a focus on ASEAN and India. Operating as a permanent capital vehicle, Zilliqa Capital aims to foster the creation of an open and interoperable financial network in the APAC region via focused investments in blockchain-related products and services as well as traditional FinTech startups. In particular, by leveraging its strategic relationship with the blockchain platform Zilliqa, the company will seek to become the central investment hub for the Zilliqa ecosystem and tap into the investment opportunities in Zilliqa's thriving ecosystem of venture builders, developers, startups and its broad community, while also looking to attract new development on the Zilliqa blockchain and into the ASEAN and Indian region, in general. |
Zilliqa Blockchain is one of the leading platforms designed to be scalable so as to support high-volume decentralised applications in the financial landscape. Its ecosystem is growing rapidly in the ASEAN region and beyond, quickly becoming a platform of choice for traditional and upcoming regulated FinTech companies such as Xfers that launched their Singapore Dollar backed stablecoin and regulated exchange HGX that offers a member-driven marketplace for securitised tokens. The ecosystem also boasts popular startups from the blockchain world such as Unstoppable Domains, Mintable, Switcheo, Xanpool, Transak, Coin Rule, Elliptic and others. |
The growing FinTech, Open Finance and Decentralised Finance ecosystem in the ASEAN and Indian region and beyond has opened up new investment opportunities that Zilliqa Capital aims to tap into.
Chairman, CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer
Co-Chief Investment Officer and Director
Michael H. Conn
Dr. Amrit Kumar
Our Team
An experienced team with combined strengths in finance, venture capital and technology.
Michael was formerly co-Founder, CEO and Director of Ether Capital (ETHC: NEO), the first Ethereum-focused publicly-traded company, where he successfully led a $45 million private placement raise and public listing. With an established career across both the traditional financial services and digital assets space, Michael has held senior leadership positions at AllianceBernstein, Société Générale, Trust Company of the West, AsiaVest, and Quail Creek Ventures, having been responsible for portfolio management, strategy, M&A, operations, sales, and marketing across Asia, North America and Europe.
Amrit was formerly co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Zilliqa Research. He actively participated in its $22 million initial fundraise and has been an active fintech and digital asset investor ever since. He researched at National University of Singapore and has a PhD in Computer Science from Inria, France. He has published several academic papers on blockchains and smart contracts at top tier conferences such as PLDI, OOPSLA, ESORICS and DSN. Many of his research papers have been deployed into production systems.
Board of Directors
- Rumi MoralesPartner and Head of Venture at Outlier VenturesRumi is a Partner and Head of Venture at Outlier Ventures, a leading trans-Atlantic venture firm investing in the convergence of blockchain with other rapidly advancing technologies. She previously led the venture arm of the CME Group in Chicago where she pioneered investments by large financial institutions in blockchain and digital currencies. She was also a long-time executive at Goldman Sachs in New York and Hong Kong and founded a premier boutique research firm, based in Singapore, focused on financial market development. Rumi is a member of the Boards of the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Negaunee Music Institute of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the BitGive Foundation, and the Chamber of Digital Commerce.
- Miko MatsumuraGeneral Partner of gumi Cryptos CapitalMiko has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley for over 25 years, including raising over $50 million in venture capital for companies such as Gradle, Hazelcast. He has also participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in successful startups like Celsius, Idle Finance and Pundi X. He has been an investor with Focus Ventures, a firm with over $800M under management, 9 IPOs, 44 exits and Pantera Capital. He holds a Master's degree in Neuroscience from Yale University where he worked on abstract computational neural networks.
- Jehan ChuFounder and Managing Partner at Kenetic CapitalJehan founded Kenetic Capital -- a blockchain Venture Capital and cryptocurrency trading firm based in Hong Kong. He has invested and supported over 100 projects. Jehan also founded the Ethereum HK community (2014), co-Founded the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong (2014). Jehan serves as co-Chairman of the Hong Kong Fintech Association Blockchain Committee, is enrolled in the Kauffman Fellows Program, and is a Fellow of the Singapore University of Social Science. Jehan holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and MA from Hong Kong University.
- Professor David LEE Kuo ChuenProf. Blockchain, Singapore University of Social SciencesDavid also holds an Adjunct Professor position at the National University of Singapore. His other appointments are the founder of BlockAsset Ventures, the Chairman of Global Fintech Institute, Vice President of the Economic Society of Singapore, Co-founder of Blockchain Association of Singapore, and Council Member of British Blockchain Association. He has 20 years of experience as CEOs and Independent Directors of listed and tech companies and is a consultant and advisor to international organisations on food supply chain, blockchain, FinTech and Digital Currency.
- Benjamin TsaiPresident & Managing Partner at Wave FinancialBenjamin leads Wave Financial, a California Registered Investment Advisory firm focused on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, with a focus on portfolio management and product development. Previously, Ben served as the Head of Alternative Investments Asia Pacific at AllianceBernstein for 3 years. His finance career started at Merrill Lynch, where he spent 12 years stationed in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore, running derivative products desks for both equity and fixed income, subsequently the commodities desk. He has a BS from UC Berkeley, MBA from UCLA, and is SEC registered.
- Mason BordaFounder and CEO of TokensoftMason is Founder and CEO of Tokensoft. Tokensoft is a blockchain infrastructure firm that helps create your favorite digital assets. To date, Tokensoft customers comprise over $10 Billion in market cap from assets such as Tezos, Avalanche and The Graph. In 2020, Tokensoft pioneered bringing SEC-Registered assets to the Ethereum blockchain with INX Token and ArCoin. Previously Mason held positions at BitGo, Boeing, Space Systems/Loral, and Broadcom.
- Jeffrey ZirlinCo-Founder at Sky Mavis/Axie InfinitySky Mavis are the developers of Axie Infinity where Jeff spearheads community growth experiments, incentive design, and strategic collaborations. A lifelong gamer and collector, Jeff has been involved in the Non-fungible token (NFT) space since 2017.
Investment Thesis
Decentralised financial products and services are shaping the future of finance. We will invest in ventures building the decentralised future that will leave a pronounced impact across developed and emerging markets. There is a tremendous opportunity to serve the Unbanked and Underbanked population in the region by supporting the "picks and shovels" type of businesses that will foster democratisation of access to financial products and services.
