Iconium
Founded in 2018, Iconium is a private investment company that invests in digital assets and projects that will lead the decentralized Internet era. With over 25 years of experience in the tech and digital industry and more than five years of experience in the blockchain industry, their team has already invested in dozens of projects and analyzed more than 1000 projects.
Iconium is always looking for amazing teams both in the launch and in the growth phase to help these teams achieve their goals. They are long-term investors and want to contribute to the growth of projects that will shape the economy of tomorrow.
CoinCu News recently had the opportunity to speak with Iconium’s CEO Fabio Pezzotti to understand more about the company’s vision, goals, and future plans.
CoinCu News: “Can you give us a brief description of your company’s activities, values, and mission?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “I’m Fabio Pezzotti, CEO and Founder of Iconium. Iconium is a leading crypto investment fund, focused on supporting amazing teams aiming to disrupt blockchain, DeFi, Web3, and the Metaverse. We strongly believe that blockchain and digital assets will disrupt not only finance and money as we know it, but the whole Internet and communication spaces, allowing for the creation of new economic systems, and also the progressive decentralization of governments.
Our goal is to actively contribute to the growth and development of this incredible industry by creating a diversified portfolio that is well-positioned to anticipate thematic trends in the space. We invest with a long-term horizon in the most innovative early-stage projects, supporting them in every phase of their journey by leveraging our consolidated expertise and our extensive network.”
CoinCu News: “Can you tell us a little about yourself?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “I’ve been a tech entrepreneur since 1998, when I founded my first Internet venture, Xoom Spa, after several roles in business development and strategic consulting for global companies in Paris, London, and Milan. Xoom soon became the leading web community in Italy, and 2 years later it was acquired by SEAT Pagine Gialle, a leading European Digital Conglomerates at the time.
In 2006 I founded Mobango Ltd. in London, a unique mobile-user content platform and one of the first on the Android App Store. After the entry of major Venture Capital funds, Mobango was then acquired by People Infocom of Mumbai, funded by Sequoia and Intel Capital.
I was also one of the seed investors in Vertical Response Inc, based in San Francisco and acquired in 2013 by DeLuxe Corporation (NYS: DLX). In 2010 I founded Xandas New Media Ventures, a venture studio co-founding and investing in seed startups.
In 2017 I discovered Bitcoin and the Blockchain world, and together with an experienced team, I established Iconium, with the aim of devoting myself to researching, selecting, and participating in the best projects in the cryptocurrency world.”
CoinCu News: “What advise would you give yourself if you could go back in time a year or two?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “As the saying goes, ‘it’s easy to be wise after the event.’ This is especially true when talking about investments. Going back in time is not possible (at least at the moment), so the advice I would give myself would be to always look forward. However, while we have been quite aggressive in the bear market—when almost nobody believed anymore in the altcoin opportunities—if I could go back to 2018\2019, I would have been much more aggressive.”
CoinCu News: “What problem does your company solve?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “Iconium’s purpose is to research and select the best projects in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space, actively contributing to the growth and development of the projects we invest in. Web3 is opening up a new world of possibilities, starting from the financial applications and expanding to a vast number of other use cases.
We might say that our broader purpose is to solve the limitations and the current problems of today’s web, enhancing ownership and equality through a new open, trustless, decentralized, and privacy-driven system where users are in the center of revenue-sharing business models and become increasingly engaged in the decision-making process.
On a day-to-day basis, we devote our efforts to selecting the most innovative projects and provide them with all the support they need to succeed in achieving their goals.”
CoinCu News: “What problem are you attempting to solve/ are you facing with, and for whom?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “Everything moves extremely fast in this ever-changing industry and the injection of large amounts of capital, together with the entry of institutional players, has further accelerated this process.
This raises several challenges—first and foremost on the regulation side. This is definitely one of the hottest topics, especially in respect to stablecoins after the most recent events in the market. Regulation is a need and it has the potential to bring more stability to the crypto market. On the other hand, having regulations is not enough, you need to have good ones. One of the main problems to solve will be finding a good compromise between protecting investors and preserving the ongoing process of innovation towards decentralization.
We also believe we’re transitioning towards a “multichain” future, where blockchains with different focuses and purposes co-exist and users are able to move their assets across different chains with little-to-no effort, boosting the adoption of this technology and the liquidity in the crypto industry. On the path to mass adoption, user experience does have a huge impact.
Today, more than ever, we are focused on solutions aimed at providing the best experience for users in both the onboarding process and later stages. We expect a high growth potential for cross-chain solutions and crypto wallets—see Jack Dorsey’s project for a new crypto wallet. Both represent essential tools for users to move continuously across the several opportunities that this world offers.”
CoinCu News: “What inspired you to start your business?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “When I was first exposed to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies it immediately reminded me of the pioneering phase of the web, in which I had been involved first hand. I sensed the massive opportunities that would be created in the next decade and the break-through capacity of this new technology, so I decided to stop all the other activities and devote myself full-time to this exciting, ever-changing industry.
I also believed that building a very strong team of professionals was the key to succeed both in bad and good times: when markets are sky-rocketing there is a lot of noise and a lot of new teams with low skills and an opportunistic approach enter the market.”
CoinCu News: “What efforts have you made to ensure the success of your business?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “As I previously mentioned, this is an extremely dynamic industry. Innovation is really fast-paced, so one of the biggest efforts is certainly to keep up with everything that is going on and always keep studying.
Only 4 years ago the whole world of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) had yet to be born, while now there are about $111 billion locked in DeFi protocols. Now we’re in the era of NFTs, the Metaverse and Play-to-earn, with these terms indicating themselves a wide variety of applications and almost endless declinations.
Another key factor has been the effort in building our extensive international network of partners and crypto professionals, ranging from exchanges, launchpads, and accelerators to ecosystem funds, investors, limited partners and VCs, and crypto marketing and PR agencies. On the one hand, this ensures Iconium’s quality deal flow, on the other hand it allows us to provide comprehensive assistance to projects.”
CoinCu News: “What are your plans for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “In the near future, we expect blockchain and crypto to become increasingly well-known to the general audience. The industry awareness and the growing adoption of this technology will surely open up new scenarios and further opportunities.
Five years is a very long time for this industry and we will, most likely, be dealing with a whole new market. One thing we are sure of is that the Venture Capital landscape will be completely disrupted, it is what we call Venture capital 3.0. We are already partially in the VC 2.0 era. What’s a sure thing is that Iconium will continue its ongoing efforts to support the projects that share our vision for the future. We’ve planned to invest another $60 million in the next two years.
By now, we have already screened more than 2,000 projects and funded more than 80. We are extremely committed to making an impact in the industry and helping the project we select to achieve their goals and building long-term successful partnerships.”
CoinCu News: “What has been your most difficult obstacle thus far?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “I would not talk about obstacles, I prefer to call them challenges. The main challenge to us, which is also the ultimate key to success, is certainly the one of anticipating industry trends.
To do so, it is crucial to look at the whole picture, understanding the needs of the different actors that play in it, from developers to users. It’s not easy to keep one foot in the present market and the other in the future, but that’s what we’re focused on.”
CoinCu News: “Are there something else that you want to share?”
Fabio Pezzotti: “I would like to say a final word on the current situation of the crypto market. We’re facing a time of high volatility and uncertainty arising from both intrinsic and extrinsic factors—see the largest drop in the public equity market since the 2008-2009 Great Recession—and we don’t know how much longer it will last and whether it will mark the beginning of a new bear market.
What is important to keep in mind is that it is precisely from these moments that we learn and build. From every difficulty, new opportunities arise. Today’s problems and limitations are identified, and for every one of them there’s a startup ready to enter the market and fill the gap with a new, innovative solution.”
If you want to get in touch with Iconium, these are some of their official channels:
Website: https://www.iconium.it/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IconiumV
Medium: https://medium.com/iconium
DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.
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