Tether plans to invest up to $1B in one year
Stablecoin giant Tether plans to invest a large portion of its revenue in emerging markets, artificial intelligence (AI) and biotech, according to CEO Paolo Arduino.
Tether expects to invest at least $1 billion through its venture capital arm in the next 12 months, Arduino said in an interview with Bloomberg published on June 11.
According to the CEO, Tether has a growing team of 15 that reviews hundreds of pitches every month. Tether's VC arm has invested about $2 billion over the past two years in projects like AI and alternative financial infrastructure.
Tether can bring AI computing to all invested organizations.
Tether's CEO also mentioned that Tether has invested more than $1 billion by 2023, including backing financial data center operator Northern Data Group with $610 million in debt.
We can provide AI computing to the companies we invest in,” Arduino said.
“It's all about investing in technology that complements traditional financial interventions. He has less faith in Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
Arduino's new comment on Tether VC's ambitions comes a few weeks after it posted a record net profit of $4.52 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Much of the profit — $3.52 billion — came from the company's financial gains in Bitcoin (BTC) and gold, while an additional $1 billion came from operating profit.
Tether does not require startups to reach specific targets.
“You can imagine the news that Tether is making good money has spread around the world,” Arduino said. “We get tens or hundreds of deals on the table every month, and we only do a very small percentage of the final ones,” he added.
Arduino mentioned that Tether does not require the companies to reach certain profit targets in the next one to two years after the investment.
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“Our investment policy is only investing in projects that we find very interesting,” he said.
We are not a classic VC. We invest in things we care about and have our own strategy.
Tether is one of the largest companies in the cryptocurrency industry. It operates the Tether (USDT) stablecoin, the largest traded cryptocurrency and stablecoin on the market.
The news comes just a few months after Tether restructured its business into different divisions, namely Tether Data, Tether Finance, Tether Power, Tether Edu, Tether Evo and more in April 2024.
Beyond AI investments, Tether has been involved in Bitcoin mining, investing $150 million in Jihan Wu's crypto mining Bitdar in May.
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