British Billionaire’s Family Office to Bet More Money on Crypto

The family office of billionaire businessman Simon Nixon, Seek Capital, is planning to invest additional funds into crypto assets, a media report revealed. The decision adds to a trend indicating that the rich increasingly view cryptocurrency as a hedge against inflation and low interest rates.

Simon Nixon’s Seek Capital Family Office to Increase Exposure to Crypto Assets

London-based Seek Capital intends to increase “allocation to crypto as we feel it is an important area for the future,” announced the company’s Managing Director Adam Proctor, quoted by Bloomberg. The executive, who spent over a decade at Citigroup before joining Nixon’s family office this year, also revealed that Seek Capital is looking to hire a crypto analyst.

U.K. billionaire Simon Nixon is a cofounder of price-comparison site Moneysupermarket.com which was established as a mortgage-listings platform in the early 1990s. He sold the last of his shares in the company in 2016. According to his venture capital firm, 54-year-old Nixon manages over $1 billion of personal assets in the tech sector.

Interest towards crypto investments on the part of family offices has been stable so far this year, the report notes, despite market ups and downs. And with bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies rebounding in the past weeks, it’s likely to remain strong.

A Goldman Sachs survey showed in July that almost half of the company’s family office clients would like to put money into digital assets. The poll indicates that the ultra-rich and their wealth management firms increasingly see cryptocurrencies as an option to hedge for higher inflation and low interest rates. Research from 2019 by Campden Wealth valued family offices at almost $6 trillion.

A growing mainstream acceptance has also played a role in favor of cryptocurrency investments. According to another study conducted last month, 70% of institutional investors are likely to acquire crypto assets in the near future. Despite price volatility and regulatory uncertainty, 90% of the respondents expect their firms and clients to buy digital coins or make other crypto investments within five years.

Simon Nixon’s move comes after Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego revealed in November he had invested some of his liquid funds in cryptocurrency. Bloomberg also noted that in June, Cryptology Asset Group, founded by Michael Novogratz and Christian Angermayer’s family office, pledged to allocate $100 million to crypto-related funds in the next two years.