Two U.S. pension funds back Morgan Creek Digital’s $40M blockchain venture fund

Digital asset management firm Morgan Creek Digital has announced a new $40 million blockchain venture fund backed by two major pension funds.

The two pension funds collectively manage $5.1 billion in assets for the state’s police force and other employees, Forbes reported. In a series of tweets, Morgan Creek Digital founder Anthony Pompliano provided further details of the new fund, called the Morgan Creek Blockchain Opportunities Fund. He said:

“We set out to raise a fund filled with institutional investors. It was obvious this would be an uphill battle. It took hundreds of hours of educating folks on why this was important and worth doing.”

Pompliano said that the fund has also received support from a hospital system, a university endowment, an insurance company and a private foundation. The fund will also have “small exposure to Bitcoin too,” he said, adding:

“I believe every fund, regardless of strategy or industry, should have direct Bitcoin exposure.”

Importantly, he said that the Morgan Creek Digital Team has been deploying capital for a while now and the portfolio has 14 investments so far. Forbes reported that the fund has invested in Bakkt, Coinbase, Blockfi, RealBlocks, TrustToken, Harbor, Open Finance Network, CityBlock Capital, Namebase, Good Money and Digital Assets Data.

In August 2018, Morgan Creek Digital, in partnership with crypto investment startup Bitwise, has launched The Digital Asset Index Fund, designed for institutional investors. Later in December, Pompliano said that bitcoin is a potential solution to the pension crisis and stressed that “every pension fund should buy Bitcoin.”