New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Point72 Ventures leads $35M investment in fintech firm
STAMFORD — Point72 Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by billionaire hedge fund investor Steven Cohen, has announced it is leading a $35 million Series C funding round in financialtechnology firm Zero Hash.
“Zero Hash has developed a unique platform to help fintechs and financial institutions seamlessly embed crypto(currency) products and experiences into their applications in a flexible and compliant way,” Point72 Ventures partner Adam Carson said in a statement. “We believe embedded finance solutions, like Zero Hash’s crypto API platform, will help play an important role in enabling broader adoption of digital assets by allowing consumers to access crypto through the fintech apps and financial services brands they already use and trust.”
The new funding — which also includes contributions from a number of other investors — will help Chicago-based Zero Hash to keep expanding its product offerings, which extend to the decentralized finance and non-fungible token markets, according to company officials.
Those funds will also help the firm grow across its compliance, marketing, product and engineering divisions. The company has nearly doubled its number of employees since the beginning of 2021 and recently reached profitability.
In addition, the company said it plans on expanding its global licensing framework and making acquisitions.
Zero Hash said it powers some of the largest “neo-banks” including MoneyLion and Wirex and broker-dealers including tastyworks and TradeStation. Zero Hash also said that it is working with “some of the largest brands across the fintech and financial services ecosystem” to deliver upcoming cryptocurrency offerings.
“Zero Hash is defining an entire new fintech vertical of ‘digital-assets as a service,’” Edward Woodford, the company’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Zero Hash is a pure-play B2B embedded infrastructure platform that allows any platform to integrate digital assets natively into their own customer experience quickly and easily.”
Among other transactions in 2021, Point72 Ventures announced in February that it was leading a $90 million investment in Shield AI, a selfdriving software company. In January, it disclosed it was leading a nearly $19 million investment in financial-technology firm Trade Ledger. Also in January, Ventures said that it was coleading a $7 million investment in Swapp, a constructionplanning technology firm.
Ventures was founded in May 2016, about twoand-a-half years after Greenwich resident Cohen founded the main investment firm that he runs today, Stamford-based hedge fund Point72. Ventures’ launch responded to the large volume of deals pitched to Cohen.
In total, Ventures has invested in more than 70 companies. Ventures has offices at Point72’s headquarters at 72 Cummings Point Road in Stamford’s Waterside section, as well as others in New York City and Palo Alto, Calif. It operates separately from the hedge fund, but its insights are shared with the latter.