Last year’s Global Corporate Venturing Symposium included a panel on blockchain technology and its ability to enhance the management of venture capital funds and investments.
Thomas Zehnder of VC firm BlueOcean Ventures and Ami Ben David, managing partner of blockchain-powered fund manager Spice Venture Capital, touted blockchain’s potential in facilitating ownership of value. Others have agreed.
Carlos Domingo, founder of Spice, also set up Securitize, a US-based compliance platform for security tokens or digital securities on the blockchain and the issuance technology for the Cosimo X tokens. The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has invested at least $1m in the Cosimo X tokens and regarded as the first time any university in the US has directly invested in a tokenized venture fund.
Cosimo Ventures is an investment firm with offices in Boston and Dublin investing in financial-focused businesses that use digital assets and blockchain protocols. According to Robert Frasca, managing partner at Cosimo Ventures and an RIT alumnus, although similar institutions, including Harvard, Yale, and MIT, have made indirect investments into digital assets and blockchain technology through traditional venture funds, such as Andreesen Horowitz and Paradigm, RIT was the first to directly hold a tokenized economic interest in digital security form.
Domingo added: “The Cosimo team has completely redesigned the way venture capital investing works by heightening valuation transparency, enhancing liquidity, and generating economic incentives for long-term holders. By deploying our Securitize ID and Instant Access products in tandem with the token, Cosimo investors have access to groundbreaking tech that enables instant trading of securities in a compliant way that leverages the broadest set of wallets such as Coinbase Wallet.”
James Watters, RIT’s senior vice-president for finance and administration, said: “As industry leaders, not only is it important for us to invest in businesses advancing cutting-edge technologies, but it is essential to adopt such technologies as a means by which we invest. We are impressed by the entrepreneurial experience and forward-thinking mindset of the Cosimo team and their innovative approach to venture investing. The team’s deal flow has sourced unparalleled investment opportunities and the fund has one of the most appealing economic structures in the market today.”
RIT’s move reflects a hypothesis we had when starting Global University Venturing that startups would become increasingly strategic to chancellors given the disruptive pressure of education tech on their own business models but also to support and invest in their alumni to show impact and deliver on core missions set by the state/owners.
Even before the disruption caused by Covid-19 disease, financial sustainability was consistently highlighted as the biggest threat faced by universities.
While financial stability is a critical challenge, Emerge Education has identified significant growth potential for the universities that effectively innovate to expand their reach, enhance the student experience, and diversify their revenue streams.
And as often the largest local employers and effectively corporations with billions of dollars of annual revenues, universities’ venturing activities are finally catching up to other sectors and becoming more strategic as well as innovative.
