Led · Equity · Apr 2024

FilmChain provides a digital Collection Account Management (CAM) platform that collects and allocates revenues transparently and in near real-time for the global screen industries. The company also offers a royalties management system for enterprises, including digital distributors, broadcasters and studios. FilmChain serves nearly 2,000 clients across Europe and Australia. The platform is used to manage payments for films and TV stakeholders and to streamline revenue distribution. The company plans to use new funding to expand operations and extend its business reach into North America.

Led · Seed · Sep 2022

PeopleHedge is a financial technology company led by CEO Damon Magnuski that focuses on enhancing non-interest income for community banks and credit unions. Its SmartRoute technology creates a real-time auction for foreign-exchange payments, compressing pricing and making banks more competitive with fintech rivals. The company raised $1.4M in seed funding and intends to use the proceeds to grow market share. PeopleHedge is pursuing a longer-term plan to form a digital correspondent bank. Subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals, PeopleHedge Corp is in the process of becoming Acceleron Bank, a digital correspondent bank in formation. The company is based in Vermont, Illinois.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2022

Naoris Protocol offers a decentralized cybersecurity mesh in which network devices validate one another through a tokenized machine economy to eliminate single points of failure. Its protocol uses a novel consensus mechanism called Distributed Proof of Security (dPoSec) running on a purpose-built, high-throughput blockchain with a sharding architecture called Verge Clusters. The CYBER token is required to add machines to the network and is used to incentivize participants and validators to identify vulnerabilities and maintain trust. The company says its approach aligns with zero-trust architecture, is community-governed and censorship-resistant, and can be customized for industries such as banking, healthcare, governments, and the broader Web3 stack. Naoris finished an extensive period of research and development and plans to launch by the end of the year while scaling adoption of its validator mesh and self-healing capabilities. The company recently banked $11.5 million in funding to support moving into the next phase of serving a growing web2 and web3 customer portfolio.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2022

CityFALCON uses AI and Big Data to personalise content feeds from thousands of financial sources into a single paid subscription, delivering curated content, analytics, and insights via web, mobile, and API. The company is led by CEO Ruzbeh Bacha and operates from London, UK and Malta. In June 2022 it closed an equity fundraising campaign of £1.65m ($2m) on Seedrs. Investors in the round included The Holt Xchange, Terance Butler Holdings (TBH), serial entrepreneurs, and eToro (the social investing network with over 27 million registered users). Overall CityFALCON now reports 2,300 existing investors, with roughly 1,200 joining in this round (both new and repeat investors). The campaign proceeds are intended to scale the business and bring new products to market.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

Manzil operates a tech-enabled, Halal-certified (ethical) neo-financial services platform offering home financing and yield-generating investment products. Its core offerings include ethical mortgage programs and the Manzil Mortgage Fund, a Canadian-based Halal and ethical fixed-income fund available through CI Direct Investing. Since launch, Manzil has self-financed dozens of mortgage transactions using capital from thousands of retail investors. The company reports a waitlist of 10,000+ families representing over USD$4B of mortgage financing demand, growing at roughly USD$120M+ per month. Manzil is registering its mortgage brokerage to serve Canadians country-wide and plans to expand its platform into the US and UK in the coming year. The company positions itself as the only North American platform that abides by diverse ethical and religious finance principles to serve faith-based and ethical investors.