Crypto index provider Vinter rapidly growing amidst market volatility

Although the cryptocurrency market is having a rough year, interest in the rapidly evolving crypto industry remains high. Swedish startup Vinter is helping investors navigate the turbulence through its crypto ETF indexes which track the performance of the market.

Vinter founders Jacob Lindberg, Marco Poblete, and Håkan Holmberg quit their jobs in May of 2019 to go all-in on the company. The three joined the Sting Accelerate program and in the next month raised a €200k round “based on a napkin and a strong team.” The team has now raised €4 million total from European venture investors.

CEO Jacob Lindberg says the company’s goal is to change how financial institutions and people view and invest in cryptocurrency.

“There’s been a huge trend the last 30 years in investing where money moves from active management to passive management,” Lindberg said. “We thought that this trend would continue and carry over into crypto.”

Lindberg says people are primarily investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum, but many aren’t invested in an institution or larger fund within the crypto industry. Vinter was launched to solve this problem, with the team building smarter indexes specialized in crypto assets.

“We want to be the largest crypto index provider in the world”

It’s been a tough year for cryptocurrency, with both Bitcoin and Ethereum down more than 50 percent from their all-time highs last year. As an index provider for crypto assets, Vinter is insulated from market volatility like this.

“We started Vinter during the ‘crypto winter’ of 2018-2019, and in Swedish it literally means winter,” Vinter CEO Jacob Lindberg said. “So we were born for this era of crypto winter.”

A crypto winter refers to a poorly performing cryptocurrency market, similar to a bear market in the stock market. Experts say another crypto winter is coming, caused by rising interest rates driven by high inflation.

Vinter is weathering the storm, with the size of the team tripling in the last year and revenues growing by six times in the same span. The company is approved by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and now has a large portfolio of clients and products around the world.

The process is directly comparable to indexes tracking the S&P 500 and specific industries in the stock market. It allows investors to diversify their money across many different assets.

“The fundamental problem we are solving for our customers is the same that they’re solving for theirs,” Lindberg said. “We have the same function in the market.”

The company’s indexes include the Vinter Top 10 Index, which tracks the top 10 by 90 days average market capitalization. They also list the Vinter 5 Minimum Volatility Index, for investors who want to invest in a large-cap crypto index while striving for low volatility.

“An index provider is a little bit like a truth teller, because we can calculate the value of the portfolio on a day-to-day basis,” Lindberg said. “So having an independent third party transparently calculate according to a methodology which is public instills some trust in market participants.”