Said Gutseriev sold his shares in Capital.com and Currency.com. Both companies’ shares were acquired by Viktor Prokopenya, a tech entrepreneur and the founder of VP Capital, an investment company. In a separate transaction, FTX acquired Said Gutseriev’s share in Zubr.io.
These transactions have been confirmed by the involved parties. The final transaction amount has not been disclosed.
After Gutseriev’s sale of Currency.com and Capital.com, the joint projects between Larnabel Ventures and VP Capital ended. The investors separated their ways.
Background of the Transaction
In July 2017, Said Gutseriev, the founder of Larnabel Ventures, started to actively invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain projects.
The AI-based trading business Capital.com received $12.5 million in investment from Gutseriev and Prokopenya in 2017. In 2019, the venture became an infrastructure business for Currency.com, the first legitimate cryptocurrency trading platform in the CIS. It has legal entities in Gibraltar, Great Britain, and Belarus.
- The first such project was Capital.com, an artificial intelligence-based fintech platform founded by technology entrepreneur Viktor Prokopenya in 2016. In 2017, Prokopenya and Gutseriev invested $25 million in the company on a parity basis.
- In 2018, Said Gutseriev founded the Zubr.io cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, investing $4 million in it.
- In 2019, technology developed by Capital.com was used to launch Currency.com, Europe’s first regulated exchange-traded cryptocurrency trading platform. The project was developed and founded by the team of Viktor Prokopenya. Said Gutseriev became a co-investor on the same parity basis as in the case of Capital.com. According to some reports, businessmen invested $10 million in the launch of the project.
International Investors
The projects grew rapidly and received a lot of attention from international investors. When it became possible to maximize the profit from their sale, Said Gutseriev decided to leave the cryptocurrency business.
Since the start of 2020, the businessman began negotiations with VP Capital to buy his shares of Capital.com and Currency.com.
The pertinent filings were submitted to the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC), the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), and other regulatory bodies in the course of the summer of 2020.
It took almost a year to process and receive the necessary documents from the regulators for the deal. Capital.com and Currency.com shares were sold to VP Capital in the summer of 2021.
In the spring of 2021, Gutseriev sold his stake in Zubr.io to the FTX international crypto exchange. At the time, FTX had raised over $420 million to acquire projects and was interested in buying new companies.
Toward the start of 2021, Gutseriev started selling off his other holdings. Larnabel Ventures sold its share in Banuba, which was initially co-partnered by VP Capital, to investors from the private sector. This was the last joint project of Said Gutseriev and Viktor Prokopenya. Thus, with the sale of the crypto exchanges and the disposal of Banuba, there are no longer any active cooperative projects between Larnabel Ventures and VP Capital.
Investor Comments
“We gratefully acknowledge the help of VP Capital to foster the growth of our joint projects,” says Eldar Vagapov, the managing partner of Larnabel Ventures. Among the industry pioneers in regulated digital currency exchanges and investing software are Currency.com and Capital.com.
“We commend each of our company partners for several years of productive collaboration that have enabled us to solidify the top management positions of the companies we invest in while attaining remarkable outcomes,” says Viktor Prokopenya, founder and shareholder of Currency.com, Capital.com, and VP Capital.
According to the spokesman, Gutseriev is not giving up on the cryptocurrency sector despite the termination of three of his initiatives. He still believes in the potential of this sphere and has achieved positive results by exiting these projects.
A VP Capital spokesman added that the company intends to make deliberate investments in cryptocurrency-related ventures in the coming years.
About Companies
VP Capital is an international technology-focused investment company. It was founded in 2012 and is based in London. The company’s area of interest is fintech, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.
Larnabel Ventures is an investment fund founded in 2016. The company supports investments in retail, gambling, finance, and consumer technology.
FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange. Supports spot market, derivatives, and securities trading.
