Big-spending Investor Injects Capital Into Another Crypto Startup

Japanese blockchain startup Fressets has received a whopping USD 3.2 million in investment from rewards point operator Ceres and the University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC), a technology-focused venture capital firm with links to academic institutes including the University of Tokyo.

Fressets, founded less than a year ago, is working on a solution called Bitshield, which it says will provide business users with a combination of multisignature (multisig) hot and cold wallets.

This marks the third time Ceres has made a joint investment in Fressets – the point operator (now a major Fressets shareholder) also made two combined investments worth USD 600,000 in total in September of last year and March 2018. Other major shareholders include IT consultancy ULS Group and software developer Stone System.

Ceres, which owns 30% of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange BitBank, has been spending big in the crypto and blockchain market this year as it prepares to launch an exchange of its own through its Mercury subsidy.

As reported earlier, the company also made an undisclosed investment in Tokyo-based blockchain startup LOGICA this year. LOGICA is the operator of the Coinboard app, which gathers data on cryptocurrency holdings and transaction history across multiple exchanges and wallets.

Media outlet Nikkei also claims Ceres is looking to develop cryptocurrency mining operations.