Editorial staff
Said Gutseriev sold his shares in financial businesses capital.com & currecy.com to VP Capital, thereby leaving all business connections with Prokopenya. Zubr.io was separately purchased by FTX.
The investment fund Larnabel Ventures, owned by billionaire Said Gutseriev, showed interest in the technology sector at the end of 2016. Until then, the fund had been involved in retail, real estate, and oil and gas.
In three years, Said Gutseriev invested more than $30 million in projects in fintech, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. The projects that Larnabel Venture invested in a few years ago have developed and grown in market value. In 2021, when these projects became internationally recognised, he exited them completely.
Capital.com and Currency.com
Larnabel Ventures invested in Capital.com in 2017. It is a fintech company for online investments, founded by Viktor Prokopenya in 2016. According to Prokopenya, its main goal is to democratise access to financial markets. Capital.com was an early adopter of ESMA guidelines, showcasing the advantages for users on their trading platform. AI algorithms on the platform help users fix mistakes from previous sessions, reducing losses by over 80%.
VP Capital and Larnabel Ventures invested $25 million in the project. They also spent an extra $1.5 million to buy the domain.
Capital.com developed technologies for Currency.com, a tokenised asset cryptocurrency exchange launched in 2019. The project was innovative and in some ways revolutionary in its direction. Firstly, it was fully regulated. It also made it easier to invest in tokens backed by real assets. Users could invest in tokenized exchange-traded assets like stocks, bonds, indices, raw materials, and commodities without intermediaries.
Currency.com acts as a bridge between traditional financial assets and digital ones. This platform gives users access to a world that was only for big companies before, especially those involved in stock indices like the S&P 500. Capital.com investors funded Currency.com through the infrastructure provided by Capital.com.
In 2019, VP Capital and Larnabel Ventures invested $10 million in Currency.com. In spring 2020, Larnabel Ventures' co-investors considered selling shares to founder Viktor Prokopenya in Capital.com and Currency.com.
Due to full project regulation, it took the companies almost a year to finalise the deal. Applications for approval of the sale of Larnabel Ventures assets were submitted to CySEC, FCA, GFSC, and other regulators in the summer of 2020. Only in May 2021, all documents were received. It was announced that Said Gutseriev had exited from Currency.com and Capital.com.
As Said Gutseriev left Currency.com and Capital.com, the joint projects between Larnabel Ventures and VP Capital ended. The investors went their separate ways.
Zubr.io
Zubr.io, the cryptocurrency exchange, is an investment venture established by Said Gutseriev in 2018. The company is registered in Gibraltar. Larnabel Ventures' official investment in the project is $4 million. According to Crunchbase.com, Gutseriev sold Zubr.io to international exchange FTX for $11 million in early 2021. FTX integrated the Zubr.io team after acquisition for compliance with the DLT provider license. Also, FTX stated that it will devote significant resources to developing a strong working relationship with the GFSC.
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