Participated · Series C · Oct 2021

Halo Investing is a technology platform that provides protective investment solutions to financial advisors and investors. Through the Halo platform users can access structured notes, market-linked CDs, buffered ETFs, annuities, and a suite of tools to educate, analyze, customize, execute, and manage protective products. Co-founded by Biju Kulathakal and Jason Barsema in 2015, Halo is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Abu Dhabi, Zurich, Dubai, and Singapore. The company emphasizes putting "impact before profits" and aims to provide access to impactful investment opportunities previously unavailable to most investors. Halo raised over $100M in a Series C to expand operations, enter new markets and distribution channels, and invest in new asset classes. The funding is intended to support growth across its business reach and product offerings. Halo Investing is a Chicago, IL-based multi-issuer technology platform that provides structured notes to financial advisors worldwide. Led by co-founders Jason Barsema (President) and Biju Kulathakal (CEO), the platform aims to ensure transparency, competition, and price efficiency for investors. Halo's product includes structured note education, content generation, and independent secondary liquidity enabling advisors to understand, evaluate, and execute structured notes almost instantly. The company intends to expand its international footprint, change how structured notes are purchased, accessed and traded, and move into new asset classes. Financially, Halo closed a $12M Series B financing on June 6, 2019, to support those initiatives. Backers in the round included Allianz Life Ventures, an affiliate of Piton Investment Management, and William Blair Circle.

Participated · Series B · Apr 2021

Securrency is a developer of institutional-grade blockchain-based financial and regulatory technology that centers on automated compliance for the issuance, exchange, administration, and servicing of digital assets. Its core platform is designed to provide rails for secure, real-time settlement and to bridge legacy financial systems and blockchain infrastructure. The company says it operates from multiple international hubs with a world-class development and commercial team and plans to expand its roster in 2021. Securrency intends to establish regulated financial services businesses in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) in partnership with Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners and has applied for relevant licenses. Through Securrency Labs it plans to develop DeFi products and a community-driven, low-code/no-code platform for creating blockchain-based financial instruments, and it also plans retail-focused products. The company recently completed a $30M Series B and previously raised $17.65M in a Series A in early 2020, which it says will fund expansion into new products and markets worldwide. Securrency develops institutional-grade blockchain-based market infrastructure centered on a patent-pending distributed identity and Compliance Aware Token framework that enforces multi-jurisdictional regulatory policy. Its technology is blockchain-agnostic and designed to enable ledger-to-ledger transactions and interoperability to facilitate global liquidity. The company offers its technology via SaaS and PaaS delivery models and positions itself as a bridge between legacy financial platforms and blockchain networks. Securrency’s compliance and policy-enforcement tools automate multi-jurisdictional rules to provide transparency and oversight for market participants and regulators. As part of its go-to-market approach, the company is collaborating with an ETF sponsor to demonstrate applications of its technology within the ETF ecosystem. Securrency’s recent Series A financing provides capital to advance its product and commercial efforts.

Led · Convertible Note · Mar 2021

Telegram is an instant messaging app that announced a partnership to integrate xAI's Grok AI into its platform. The deal includes a $300 million cash and equity investment from xAI and a 50% share of subscription revenue sold through Telegram. Telegram is concurrently pursuing a $1.5 billion bond offering backed by BlackRock, Mubadala and Citadel to repurchase earlier bond debt from 2021. The company reported roughly 1 billion customers and posted a $540 million profit on $1.4 billion in revenue in 2024. Telegram developed the TON Network token, which rose about 18.5% after the announcement, moving from $3.28 to $3.55. Near-term plans therefore include AI integration and balance-sheet management via the bond raise. Telegram is a chat app used by over 900 million people and is headquartered in Dubai. The company has introduced multiple monetization streams, including ads, username sales on the blockchain, premium subscriptions, and paid conversions of personal accounts to business accounts. Founder Pavel Durov has said Telegram aims to be profitable next year and is exploring an option to go public. Telegram secured $330 million in fresh capital through bond sales in an oversubscribed offering with favorable terms. The bonds carry a current yield of 7.7% and were issued at a price of $91, up from $78 on the prior issue. The bonds mature in 2026 or upon Telegram's IPO, whichever comes earlier. Telegram is a messaging app used by over 800 million users each month. It has grown rapidly, adding over 300 million users in the past two and a half years and attracting about 2.5 million new signups per day. Telegram has kickstarted monetization in recent years, including a subscription service, but remains unprofitable and is seeking financing to move toward break-even. The company raised $210 million through recent bond sales and previously raised over $1 billion in debt via 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds more than two years ago. Telegram has been exploring a public listing for several years and even attempted a token sale that was blocked by the SEC, but weak public markets have forced it to continue relying on private investors. Management, including founder Pavel Durov who personally bought about a quarter of the new bonds, is focused on improving finances and achieving self-sufficiency. Telegram is a messaging platform that recently passed roughly 500 million monthly active users and positions itself on privacy and user experience. Its product roadmap includes features such as voice chats 2.0, one-to-many video broadcasts and creator-focused monetization tools (subscriptions, content sales, commission models). Founder Pavel Durov has pledged non-intrusive monetization, rejecting use of user data for targeted ads while considering ads for large public channels and other creator revenue streams. Historically the company was largely bootstrapped by Durov (who realized about $300M from selling his VK stake in 2015) and earlier token/blockchain efforts (TON) were derailed by U.S. regulators with most funds refunded. To finance expansion and execute its monetization plan Telegram has pursued debt rather than equity, selling pre-IPO convertible bonds to institutional backers. The company is also deepening its regional presence in the Middle East, planning an Abu Dhabi office while building out from a Dubai base. Telegram operates a widely used messaging app and is developing the TON blockchain and associated services. The company plans distributed file storage, a proxy/decentralized-VPN service, dApp and smart-contract support, and payments/micropayments. An early TON MVP was scheduled for Q2 2018, a Telegram wallet for Q4 2018, and broader TON services targeted for 2019. Telegram had been self-funded by founders Pavel and Nikolai Durov until this outside financing. Its app is widely used across the crypto community and by many ICO projects. The company briefly had its iOS app removed by Apple earlier in the year after content-moderation issues were reported.