Evaluating different crypto projects can sometimes be complicated, even more so when several people on social media mention a project with little or no context, only talking about “how good it is.” HBar was mentioned non-stop in my feeds 6 months ago, but I have heard little about it recently. So when a reader asked, “who has invested in H Bar [HBAR]?” I started digging, and here is what I have found so far.
Let’s start with the first thing to help us understand our discussion. What is HBAR?
I’M NOT ENDORSING ANY PROJECTS OR APPS LISTED ON THIS WEBSITE!!!
Answer: HBAR is the cryptocurrency of the Hedera project. The project founders and advocates claim that they have a fast, stable, and energy-efficient cryptocurrency. As the cryptocurrency of the Hedera public network, HBAR helps incentivize people using the network through tokenomics, much like other cryptos. Hedera claims HBAR can operate with 10,000+ transactions per second, cost $0.0001 per transaction, take 3-to-5 seconds for the finality of the transaction, and only use 0.00017 KWH per transaction.
This raises some red flags that I want to address. However, it will take another article to go into the details. For now, understand that any project making these promises typically operates with private validators controlled by the project. This is not always a bad thing, but it is something you will want to keep in mind if you are looking to stay on the side of decentralized.
Now the main question I was asked is about the investors of HBAR, which can be misconstrued. There is a difference between people investing in the project and those investing in the cryptocurrency. However, investing in a cryptocurrency is primarily private unless the person makes it public or uses known wallet addresses on public ledgers.
So if you want the list of people that invested publicly in HBAR cryptocurrency, keep reading at the bottom of the page. Remember, there is a self-reporting mechanism where anyone can say anything they want on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. Several prominent creators are already known to run pump-and-dump schemes, and the way my feed filled up 6 months ago makes me think HBAR has already been through this cycle.
So in the interest of relevant information for those that might be researching Hedera and HBAR, I’m starting with the investors in the project as reported by the project.
Who has invested in Hedera?
So let’s look at who has invested in the Hedera project. Below is a list of all the funds and companies listed on the hedera.com website as investors. There is no order to my listings, and all of the information on this page comes from Hedera’s website and then each listed investor’s site.
Struck Capital
Struck Capital is a VC firm based in LA. They list in their portfolio Algorand and Postmates, which I assume most people reading this will have heard. They also list several other interesting companies but fail to showcase Hedera. Sources a couple of years old when writing report they have a 150 million dollar fund to work with. Again it is notable they do not list Hedera in their portfolio.
Multicoin Capital
Billing themselves as international, Multicoin Capital was founded in 2017 and focused on crypto. I’m not sure how many funds do this, but they state they are thesis-driven fund, which I found interesting at the start of this project, but I soon realized a lot of funds make this claim. Unfortunately for Hedera and HBAR, this firm is not listing them in their portfolio. I assume these firms have many investments, and by pure chance of how my windows got arranged during research, the first two firms I looked at do not list them in the portfolios. Multicoin has a robust online presence, and I will look deeper into some of the research.
Mind Fund
Like Multicoin Capital Mind Fund was started in 2017, they don’t have much substance online and were the first sticking point I ran into when researching this article. According to their website, They “established the Global Incubation Stream with Digital Garage in 2017 and invited partner incubation companies from around the world to join the network. All partners have agreed to collaborate to expand the global reach of each partner.”
A bunch of fluff if you ask me. Interesting to note that they have ByteDance featured on their page in the growth section. I take this to mean they have an investment with ByteDance, and since the growth section is not listed alphabetically, I can either assume this is their most significant investment or the one that has paid the best.
They list Hedra on their portfolio and feature articles from around the web that put HBAR in a positive light, along with other investments they have.
Fenbushi Digital
Fenbushi Digital is a firm out of Shanghai. They do not list Hedra or HBAR on their website in their portfolio. Given their geographical location, I wonder if this firm is allowed to participate in crypto investing at this time. The last Twitter post was in 2020. However, LinkedIn shows signs that the company might live as several people listed as employees, including Peter Yang as Managing Director, and he is still active on both Twitter and LinkedIn.
Eterna
Located in London, Eterna has a decent online presence, making tracking recent activities and investments easy. They do list Hedera on their website as an investment. Billing themselves as an investment company focused on blockchain technology. Eterna Capital is very active on Twitter.
Digital Currency Group
DCG has been around for a while. Looking at their website, I can see investments that return to the start of the crypto micro booms in the early 2010s. They do list Hedera on their portfolio. Regarding their portfolio, they might have one of the most diversified portfolios in the crypto space. They are very active on Twitter.
DHVC
DHVC seems to be our third look at a firm not exclusively into crypto. I could be wrong, as my research here is minimal and only intended to discover apparent problems. DHVC looks like they have a lovely portfolio of companies and list Hedera in their portfolio.
CMCC
CMCC is a VC fund that started with $100 million and aims to have $300 million in assets. Unfortunately, my internet in Oklahoma was struggling to display their site (which looked very nice from the little I could see), so I couldn’t read all the material. Still, they seem like another legitimate VC fund, and they did list Hedera on their website.
BlockWall
I am still researching.
BlockChange
I am still researching.
Coming Soon: This Article and Others Like This Article
I have other articles like this one planned, and since there is a lot of overlap, I will reach out to each of these funds to get PR information and create posts about each one, which I will add my research to the articles. For the most part, I want to build an easy-to-reference interlinked library of who is investing in what.
Part two of the coming soon will be a running list of people that seem to heavily promote one coin or another and the timelines they do so. I have not started this as of yet as it might be a significant undertaking and might even require the help of some kind.