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Cameron And Tyler Winklevoss Tell Us Why They're So Bullish On Bitcoin [TCTV]
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss first emerged as household names in the tech world because of their contentious relationship with that major social networking company and its famous founder. But these days, their focus has shifted onto a new area of the tech industry that’s very different (though no less controversial): Bitcoin.
Through their Winklevoss Capital early-stage investment firm, the brothers have bought up roughly $11 million worth of Bitcoins, accounting for some one percent of the nascent currency. They have also started leading investments in companies dealing in Bitcoin technology such as BitInstant, and are familiar faces on the general Bitcoin scene with speaking engagements at events such as the Bitcoin Foundation’s annual conference.
The Winklevosses split most of their time between New York City and Los Angeles, but since they were in the San Francisco Bay Area this week we asked them to swing by TechCrunch TV to talk a bit more in depth about their keen interest in Bitcoin and their various investments in the space. We also talked more broadly about the structure of Winklevoss Capital, how it’s different from standard VC firms, what they bring to the table as investors, how their notoriety affects the way they do business day-to-day, and more.
In person, Cameron and Tyler’s demeanor is casual and friendly, but they are clearly quite serious about their roles as investors — and they are both very knowledgable and passionate about the potential of Bitcoin in particular. It will be interesting to see how their position and reputation in the tech industry evolves going forward, as they continue to make moves outside of the social networking space.
Check it all out in the video embedded above.
Highland Capital Partners Commits To Invest $25 Million In Leap Motion Developers
It seems like every time we’ve got a new developer platform, there needs to be a fund to invest in and entice developers to create awesome new applications for it. First there was the iFund. Then there was the fbFund. And the Twilio Fund. And the Glasshole Fund. And now, one venture firm has decided to put aside money for a fund that invests just in developers who make applications for the Leap Motion gesture-based controller.
Highland Capital Partners, which is already an investor in Leap Motion, has committed another $25 million to back the young startup. To do so, it’s established the Leap Fund, which is designed to find and put money into innovative startups that are building new applications that take advantage of its 3D gesture control.
So what kind of problems could applications using the Leap Motion Controller solve? According to the press release, Highland is looking for developers, entrepreneurs, and businesses “solving human scale problems” in sectors like education, security, healthcare IT, big data, and productivity, among others.
While writing checks big and small — depending on the quality of the team and how big or small of a problem they are trying to tackle — Highland will also provide guidance, mentorship and other resources to help them scale.
The announcement comes just about a month before Leap is planning to start shipping units to those who have pre-ordered the motion control device and making it available in Best Buy stores. The startup has also done deals with HP and Asus to get embedded on future hardware that they have coming out.
Already, more than 65,000 developers have expressed interest in building applications for the Leap Motion’s app store, called Airspace. It gave away more than 10,000 units to developers to build the first generation of applications for general release, and says it has hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for the $79 motion gesture device.
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