Three former employees of Genesis have reportedly raised millions of dollars for a new crypto hedge fund. Matt Ballensweig has sent a message to a prospective investor in mid-December for the fund – Hunting Hill Digital. The former Genesis executive said he had already secured $2.5 million from Bessemer Venture Partners at a $30 million post-money valuation.
Ballengsweig, who was Genesis’s managing director and co-head of trading and lending, said they were looking at raising another $5 million. He shared that the fund’s flagship product would go live in the first quarter of 2023. Ballengsweig’s partners are Martin Garcia, and Reed Werbit. Genesis filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. The crypto lender listed over 100,000 creditors with aggregate liabilities ranging from $1.2 billion to $11 billion. Ballengsweig was also named in the legal filings as Gemini, a major Genesis client, accused him of falsely reassuring the company that Genesis had the capital to operate for the long term.
The former executive described the flagship product as an alpha multistrat (delta neutral) – fund specializing in multi-strategy, low risk and high-return investments. He and his partners are set to launch two other beta products including a Top 25 Index and a DeFi beta.
Furthermore, there are other Genesis employees looking to launch a fund. A former vice president at Genesis, Roshun Patel, was raising cash for a new fund last year.
