Veteran crypto proprietary trader, Antonio Hallak, has announced a fundraising event for his new VC-funded venture, Illumina capital. The primary focus of Hallak’s new venture would be token investments and not equities.
Hallak’s Visionary Approach
The popular hedge fund manager, Melissa Fox, led this first funding round. She also plans to invest an additional $75M through a crowd-sourced fund from other reputable investors, such as those with extreme affluence and experienced crypto investors. While Hallak proposed a minimum of $1M as an initial investment, many potential partners seek to know whether they can invest multiples of that amount.
Also, Hallak has set an amount and deadline for when he would no longer receive investor funds. He disclosed that he would launch a second fund named Illumina fund II for investors that didn’t make the cut into Illumina fund I. However, Hallak didn’t provide more details on Illumina Fund II’s strategy or shareholding formula.
Many inside sources claim that Hallak would prefer a tokenized system because it favors partners as they get to enjoy increased liquidity. Hallak chooses the tokenized approach because of the high frequency at which these tokens are traded via the secondary market. Marketing resources revealed that the period of exiting each token investment would range between six and eighteen months. This duration is way shorter than that of equity stakes. One key factor vital to the launch of the Illumina capital success is the Illumina labs.
All There Is To Know About Illumine Labs
The lab is a separate arm that provides crypto startups with how they can package their concept to reach their target audience. This service usually includes the creation of the startup’s whitepaper and tokenomics. It also offers advice on smart contract audits and related functions.
More importantly, the lab has a pool of potential investors they often advise to invest in certain projects. Hence, Illumina labs provide broad consultancy services for crypto startups and existing projects. One of the lab’s recent clients is PIXELNX, a metaverse project owned by Inder Phull. Illumina’s service for this firm would be the establishment of the firm’s tokenomics and blockchain infrastructure.
Apart from these two service-based firms, Antonio Hallak also runs Weybridge. A firm primarily focused on market services and the right target audience for newly released tokens. As of this writing, Illumina labs has vacancies for 10 employees, with more to be added before the year is over.
The Long-Term Plan
Hallak further revealed that he has plans for Illumina to become a core investor in major sectors of the fast-rising metaverse space. Such sectors include sports, games, and fashion. One reason for the tokenized approach used by Hallak is that Illumina can invest sizable amounts in subsidiaries of top organizations.
For example, the fund could invest in the token of a reputable music label without owning any label shares. Thus, the fund saves itself from expensive investments and still make some decent profits. According to Hallak, Illumina usually invests in tokens of firms that have been in existence for at least 12 years.
James Thompson 
Michael Rafael