The founders of Bitpanda establish their own venture capital firm

Bitpanda’s founders have quietly established a venture capital firm, following in the footsteps of other fintech founders who have set up investment side hustles.

According to Austrian company registers, founding trio Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek, and Christian Trummer applied to establish Diamond Hand Ventures in May of last year.

According to filings from Companies House, the UK business register, it also participated in the $50 million Series B round of crypto custodian Copper in the same month.

According to a Bitpanda spokesman who verified the new VC firm, it has also invested in blockchain developer tooling startup Tatum, payments startup Payable, and Consola Finance, a web3 accounting platform. Demuth has made angel investments in Finary, a French fintech, and Talking Hands, an inclusion firm.

“They started investing as angels, but now the founders have a company that handles these transactions,” Jacob Kobler, Consola founder and former crypto product lead at Bitpanda, said in an interview. “It’s super small and if you Google the name, you will see another venture capital firm with the same name.”

Another company called Diamond Hand Ventures does exist, but it is unrelated to the Bitpanda founders’ company, according to the company’s spokesperson. It is also unclear where the firm’s capital comes from, with the latest filings showing that the founders have only paid $34,134 (€35,000).