TRG Capital
Token Research Group Capital (TRG / TRGC) is a digital fund focused on emerging ecosystems, investing solely in tokens, assets and liquid digital currencies. TRG investment partners utilize blockchain technology to improve international financial systems. These companies are also thoroughly vetted by TRG risk analysts to provide investors with adjusted risk across the fund. With this strategy, TRG has accrued 35 portfolio companies since its founding in 2018 by Etienne vantKruys, originally of Suriname, an investor at the forefront of a number of crypto and Web 3.0 developments. One of the fund’s most successful project is Ava Labs, the operator of the Avalanche multiverse and Ryval market. After a series of coin offerings, this groundbreaking incentive system to stimulate the creation of novel Subnets has raised over $290 million.
Overview of TRG Capital
Brief History
TRG was founded as a VC in Amsterdam, Netherlands, although the majority of its investments are in American companies. TRG focuses on decentralized financial networks and blockchain technologies, which allows the company to not only raise massive amounts of capital, but draw in other significant investors in tandem. This has created strong partnerships between TRG and other major VC firms like Xpring, coinIX and Arrington XRP Capital. TRG is averaging about 3-6 deals per year, with a standard funding round achieving somewhere around $3-6 million.
Significant Investments
All of TRG’s significant investments work to achieve the same goal: the widescale adoption and revolution of Web 3.0 and blockchain technologies, and TRG portfolio companies attack this problem from different angles. Tenderize, a liquid staking firm, allows users to trade and collateralize their digital portfolios using fungible Ethereum tokens. Tenderize held a seed round in August of 2022 and raised $3 million. Other portfolio pieces like Mangata Finance, a decentralized exchange platform headquartered in Slovakia, aim to mitigate risks in the crypto space by reducing insider trading and overmining. Over two rounds of funding the company has achieved $5.6 million. TRG also holds investments in companies that create essential pathways between different decentralized platforms across Web 3.0. Ethereum Push Notification Service, based in Singapore, has raised $11.5 million over two rounds while attempting to create an effective, incentivized, platform independent notification service.
TRG In The News
In July of 2020, a decentralized finance options platform from China called FinNexus announced that the company had garnered the support of Etienne vantKruys and TRG Capital. TRG agreed to buy FNX tokens from FinNexus to help expand the platform’s operation past the borders of Asia, and into the international crypto market. In June of 2021, TRG announced a policy shift that would allow international investors to join forces with the successful digital asset fund, marking an end to four years of closed operations. Etienne vantKruys is quoted as saying this move will allow for more investment not just in novel cryptocurrencies, but also in groundbreaking blockchain infrastructure. In January of 2022, TRG invested in Onramper, a Dutch payment service working to create an interface where the transition from traditional payment systems to decentralized currencies is as seamless as can be. With TRG’s support, the company raised $6 million in seed money.