Creating a digital asset portfolio today remains a daunting task for many retail investors, between navigating private keys, managing wallet addresses and deciphering complicated white papers.
Berlin-based Donut seeks to address this problem by bringing accessibility, education, and trust to managing and transacting in crypto assets with its investment app. Currently in closed beta, the app is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2019, and over 5,000 people have already joined the waiting list.
Founded in 2018, Donut has just raised a €1.6 million seed round led by early-stage VC Redalpine with participation from EarlyBlock, Entrepreneur First, AngelList’s Philipp Moehring and Andy Chung, N26 Bank board member Marcus Mosen, former N26 CMO Kelly Ford, and other angels. The funding will help the company to grow its engineering and design teams, as well as to further accelerate product development and strengthen strategic partnerships.
“We share the vision of the Donut team about the prevalence of digital assets in the future. Digital assets have many beneficial features over traditional assets, yet lack a single access point for holders to conveniently store, manage and transact,” said Harald Nieder, Donut board member and partner at Redalpine. “With Donut, we are supporting a great team to build that missing layer in the crypto ecosystem.”
The mobile-first platform leverages the EU’s upcoming PSD2 banking regulation to remove some of the common issues with buying and storing digital assets, and provide a frictionless journey for saving and investing.
“We believe most people will have the majority of their wealth stored in digital assets within the next decade,” said Neel Popat, co-founder and CEO of Donut. “That could be anything from cryptocurrencies to fractional ownership of art or owning a piece of unique land in virtual reality. Our mission is to empower everyone to become an investor in that future.”
