Cambrian is the new kid on the block-chain investment scene

Blockchain investment firms are the ‘new new thing’ in the investment world, not least European companies like kryptonite1 and neufund which are both appearing at TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin next week. If the internet came along in the 90s to move information assets around, blockchain technologies present potential for a variety of assets, with the potential to disrupt the financial services industry.

Now there’s a new kid on the block-chain (badum-tish!). Cambrian Asset Management claims to have a new take on the space, employing a research-driven, rules-based system to manage a portfolio of digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and others.

Cambrian’s fund is going to be aimed at family offices, VCs, hedge funds, endowments etc and similarly sophisticated investors which want long-term capital appreciation as the blockchain industry evolves and low exposure to high risk investments, as the company only intends to invest in the 70 or 80 top-tier blockchain startups.

Cambrian was founded by Internet 1.0 tech exec and investor Martin Green, hedge fund portfolio manager Jay Posner and three-time, VC-backed founder and active blockchain investor Adam Jackson.

Cofounder Adam Jackson told me: “Even though Bitcoin and Ethereum have had incredible gains this year, we believe it is still very early days in blockchain as assets move onto the Internet via blockchains.”

He says the company aims to hold a broad portfolio of tokens (BTC, ETH and dozens of others) which must meet certain liquidity requirements. They also plan research to root out frauds and scams. He has some experience already, being an active investor in 30+ tokens over the last year. “We believe in a research-driven, systematic, rules-based methodology to allocate capital in proportion to the relative value of each holding. Investors should maximize long-term returns, no matter which blockchains “win”.”

Jackson believes they will be “very different” from the other 70+ firms in the space, because many are either VC-style funds with early ICO access trying to “pick” winners. “A few of these will do well but history shows most will not successfully pick the winners,” he told me.