Cambrian Raises $4M to Run $25M Crypto Quant Fund

Cambrian has landed $4 million of operating capital from high-flying technology and finance investors to help run its $25 million data-driven crypto-trading fund.

• Cambrian Asset Management, the manager of a quantitative cryptocurrency fund based in Marin County, Calif., raised $4 million in equity, the firm announced Thursday.
• The seed funding round was led by Renaissance Technologies and First Round Capital co-founder Howard Morgan, the family investment offices of Charles B. Johnson and Franklin Templeton, IVP general partner Dennis Phelps, and Business Insider and MongoDB co-founder Kevin P. Ryan, according to the fund.
• "Following the events of 2020, more investors are starting to look at digital assets because of their scarcity, as well as the value created by innovation that is orthogonal to the equity and credit markets,” Ryan said.
• The money will support operations, research and development, and technology instead of growing managed assets. Morgan and Johnson are said to be deeply involved with advising Cambrian on these infrastructure plans.
• Cambrian, which started investing with mid-single-digit millions of dollars in capital, now has $25 million under management and has outperformed the Bitwise 10 and Bletchley 10 passive cryptocurrency fund indices.
• Former and current principals and executives from Goldman Sachs, UBS, The Carlyle Group, BNP Paribas, DRW, RGM, SAC Capital, Tata Capital, Standard Pacific Capital, Winton Capital, First Round Capital, Visium, Microsoft, Instagram, Airbnb, Pinterest and Fastly, as well as angel investors in Coinbase and Uber, also took part in the equity round, the fund said.
• Cambrian co-founder and chief executive officer, Martin Green, co-chief investment officer and managing partner, Jay Posner, and head of engineering, P. Daniel Tyreus, launched the fund in November 2018.
• Cambrian uses probabilistic algorithms, or computer programs developed on statistically focused models, to take long and short trading positions on large market capitalization cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin over several days or weeks rather than by the hour or minute.
• To curb risk, the fund does not trade on margin with derivatives, options or futures. Green told CoinDesk that leveraged trading instruments on cryptocurrency exchanges remain underdeveloped for the fund’s tastes.
• Cambrian works only with well-regulated, audited and on-shore custodians – Coinbase and Fidelity Digital Assets – and counterparties.