Messari alum, popular investor team up to launch $85 million crypto hedge fund

A former Messari research analyst and a notable crypto investor have drummed up $85 million for a new crypto hedge fund.

Ryan Watkins, who recently left his position at crypto research firm Messari, and Daniel Cheung, a popular investor and Twitter personality, have together co-founded Pangea Fund Management. The fund will employ a long term strategy, investing in crypto projects that have already emerged as winners in the space. 

"Pangea Fund Management is a thesis driven hedge fund making high conviction, concentrated investments in the secular winners of the cryptoeconomy," reads the fund's website. 

Watkins tweeted that Pangea runs a "concentrated portfolio anchored by 3-7 high conviction liquid tokens."

"We aim to be active participants in protocol governance and support the cryptoeconomy’s leading infrastructure protocols as they ride up the S curve to global adoption."

According to Bloomberg, two secured funding from investors including Bain Capital and ParaFi, as well as Union Square Ventures co-founder Brad Burnham, Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris and other crypto natives like Terraform Labs' Do Kwon and Alameda Research and Multicoin Capital's Kyle Samani. 

Cheung and Watkins both tweeted that the fund is hiring, particularly in data science and engineering roles.