Cinneamhain Ventures
(‘sɪn ● ɛm ● hæn)
Cinneamhain Ventures (CEHV) is an activist venture capital firm, focused on investing in, mentoring and supporting cutting edge businesses that are focused on industry disruption and innovation. The firm is a self-run family office fund and does not currently take on external capital.
Unlike traditional venture capital firms, Cinneamhain aims to take active participation roles in the companies it invests in, more akin to venture studios or private equity firms. Cinneamhain provides active mentorship, governance advocacy, advisor services and an active consulting network to deploy into their portfolio companies.
Open Orgs
Cinneamhain Ventures believes in the power of open orgs and decentralized governance, and aims to take active roles in supporting, developing, funding and securing open protocols.
When we invest in open orgs, we aim to deploy our resources, not only through capital but through active involvement in their governance process, contributing to open source code, and subsidizing the involvement of our builder network to help support the growth of these protocols.
CEHV also aims to invest in tools and advocacy to help support the management and legal recognition of decentralized/open orgs around the world.
We also maintain a specific consulting arm called OpenOrg that consults with innovators in the space from major companies to small anon startup teams.
Philanthropy Pledge
Partners at CEHV take a pledge to commit 15% of their net carry gains from CEHV funds to philanthropic causes that they believe can best improve our future.
Our Macro Thesis
While each fund at CEHV has a specific thesis, our overall ‘Macro Thesis’ is simply summed up in our tagline of “investing in bold destinies“.
CEHV aims to invest only in the most forward-looking, transformative and innovative projects, that have the ability to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of individuals on a daily basis.
We invest at the earliest stages in the dreamers, creatives, hackers and tinkerers who light up when everyone else utters the word “impossible.”
We believe that life is too short to do anything other than swing for the fences.
We’re proud to deploy capital across AI, biotech, fintech, robotics, space exploration, blockchain and and a number of other emerging industries.
Our current primary fund focus is on blockchain technology, trustless systems and decentralized finance.
What is Cinneamhain?
Cinneamhain is the Scottish Gaelic word for “Destiny” stemming from the Clach-na-cinneamhain (“the Stone of Destiny“) or An Lia Fáil (“the Stone of Scone“).
This stone was the coronation stone for the King of Scot’s.
The King or Queen of the Scottish people was always referred to as the King or Queen of Scots (“Rì nan Albannaich“/”REX SCOTTORUM“) referring to them being a leader of the people. They were not feudal overlords of the country, but a leader who aimed to represent the values of the people and lead them to their destiny (“Cinneamhain”). Unlike other countries which viewed the Kings as above the people, Scotland adopted the concept of “Primus inter parse” or “a first among equals” stating that while they held a special title to lead they were equal among their people. (The same concept is still used today to refer to a Prime Minister in many countries who is still a Member of Parliament and does not have separate executive branch authority)
Given our focus on blockchain systems, we thought this was a beautiful analogy for decentralized systems.
In most startup investing, VCs are placed on a pedestal, they inject capital into projects and add prestige but not much else, and despite the struggle coming from the actual founders, it is VCs who are often seen as Kingmakers.
At Cinneamhain, we hold the primus inter parse view. Deploying capital doesn’t make us special. We’re among our peers trying to contribute and help these new technologies build to achieve their bold destinies. That’s something that we do by being down in the trenches with our portfolio companies, not by standing above them.