According to the company’s CEO Alex Wang, the firm set out to raise $500,000. However, he noted that the target amount shifted in the course of the sale. The fund decided to increase the allocation due to the presence of “new growth channels to deploy capital”.
Ember Fund, a crypto investing app available in the U.K and U.S. among other locations, raised the funds in a crowdfunding sale, conducted while adhering to rules set by the U.S Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC).
Popular investing apps continue to attract more crypto investors
Startup crypto investing app Ember Fund has successfully raised $700k in a crowdfunding sale the company conducted under the U.S. SEC’s Reg CF. Ember Fund says the new funds will help it increase its customers and revamp its platform.
The startup organized and held the fundraiser as per SEC’s Reg CF, a regulation that allows registered firms to raise a maximum of $1.07 million over a 12 month period.
Wang added that the platform would look to deploy the new capital on its customer acquisition programs. The company, which launched its services last year, is also looking to build its smart contract technology that helps power the app.
The sale saw Ember fundraise $591k on investment platform Republic through the sale of SAFE securities in a crowdfunding project that ended March 31.
Other participants in the sale included Flight Ventures’ Gil Penchina, the early stage syndicate also having invested in blockchain firm Ripple and LinkedIn. Ember also raised funds from Growth Technology Partners through David Weisburd as well as from Kleiner Perkins.
SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) represents an investment contract with which investors in a company’s equity have a stake, if the firm in question is acquired or listed for trading on a public stock exchange.
Ember Fund has steadily grown its customer base as it offers users an easy way to invest in managed crypto assets. Users don’t have to hold the assets. The non-custodial offering differs from its custodial counterparts in that all transactions happen on-chain, helping users retain full control of their investment assets.
About 20,000 people are signed up to the app, with deposits up to date topping $6 million and total transactions rising to $20 million.
The company’s current offering of pre-vetted crypto portfolios include Quant Fund, Marius S-Tier Fund, Big 3 Weighted Fund, DataDash Index Fund, and Ember 5 Weighted Fund
Compared to Bitcoin, the company’s Marius S-Tier returned 23.4% in the first four months of 2020. Similarly, its Quant Fund gained 29.5%. The benchmark crypto BTC saw its value climb 20.9%, year-to-date.
Crypto Lender Cred Is Offering Investors 10% Interest With Spencer Dinwiddie Partnership
Spencer Dinwiddie, the Brooklyn Nets guard who launched his own tokenization platform, has launched an interest-bearing stablecoin service in partnership with crypto lending firm Cred.The new service launched Friday on Dinwiddie’s personal website. There, visitors can “pledge” TrueUSD and UPUSD stablecoins as well as bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC) and ether (ETH), earning up to 10 percent interest over the course of the term, according to Cred CEO Dan Schatt.
The service premieres at a somewhat awkward moment for Dinwiddie and Cred, both of whom deal in businesses acutely impacted by the global coronavirus pandemic. A starter for the Nets, Dinwiddie and his season were upended two weeks ago by the indefinite suspension of NBA play. Four of his teammates have since tested positive for COVID-19.
Cred, for its part, is a banking and financial services alternative at a time when global financial markets are in turmoil. Jobless claims for last week – a lagging economic indicator, but a telling one – have spiked more than at any point in over a decade, data from the Labor Department shows. The economic carnage is expected to worsen as the U.S. economy slams on its brakes.
Schatt said that the state of the world right now makes the Cred-Dinwiddie partnership all the more important. It’s offering users a high potential return on a volatility-free crypto asset: stablecoins backed one-to-one with dollar reserves.
“In an environment like this I think everyone is looking for that extra assurance. It just highlights the value of stablecoins”, Schatt said.
It’s also an opportunity to bring more people into the crypto fold, he said. Dinwiddie is the NBA’s most outspoken cryptocurrency and DeFi enthusiast, a title earned over months of fighting to tokenize his three-year, $35 million contract.
“Spencer is a fantastic spokesperson for what’s happening with blockchain and bitcoin – he’s really a thought leader in the sports industry”, Schatt said.
Dinwiddie will donate 26 percent of his revenue share to his charity, the Dinwiddie Family Foundation, according to Schatt. A Cred spokesperson declined to state what percentage of the overall revenue that slice represents. The firm’s website says it offers «up to 10 percent interest» through its Earn offering.
