DV8 completes capital raise to fund Bitcoin strategy
DV8, a Thai company that recently pivoted to become Southeast Asia’s first Bitcoin treasury firm, has carried out an initial capital raise to fund its new strategy.
Up until recently, DV8’s business activites were confined to media, innovation and technology. It emerged earlier this month that the company was being acquired by a group of Bitcoin-focused investors.
The consortium includes privately-held Bangkok-headquartered investment firm Kliff Capital, hedge fund manager UTXO Management and Taipei-headquartered crypto-backed venture capital firm Sora Ventures. It also includes Simon Gerovich, the CEO of Metaplanet, Asia’s largest Bitcoin treasury company.
Thai market potential
At the time, Sora Ventures founder Jason Fang told Decrypt that there is great potential in the Thai market, giving DV8 the potential “to be the next Metaplanet on SET [Stock Exchange of Thailand]."
The company recently appointed Chatchaval Jiaravanon as its new chairman. Jiaravanon currently serves as the founder and chairman of Water Asia and Charoen Energy, while independently owning Fortune magazine.
Alongside Jiaravanon, new appointments have also been made to the company’s board as it looks to revamp its leadership team to deal with the challenge of pivoting and pursuing a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Share issuance
A filing with SET on July 16 has revealed that the company has proceeded to raise 241 million baht, equivalent to $7.44 million. In raising this capital, the company issued 301,491,057 new shares. The shares were issued under DV8-W2 warrants with a strike price of 0.80 baht per share.
Over the course of the past 12 months, a plethora of corporations around the world have adopted Bitcoin either as a strategic asset to hold on their balance sheets or they’ve taken matters further and followed companies like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Japan’s Metaplanet, with the Bitcoin treasury becoming the central focus of the business.
Bitcoin treasury debate
The practice has proven to be controversial with some believing that Michael Saylor’s Strategy has found a workable approach using leveraged debt financing within TradFi to accumulate Bitcoin. Others like short seller Jim Chanos has called the Strategy approach “financial gibberish.”
Chanos recently debated Bitcoin investor Pierre Rochard on the subject on The Investor's Podcast. The podcast provoked a discussion on X, with Grok, the AI bot integrated within X, coming down in favor of Rochard’s pro-Strategy argument, prompting Chanos to tell Grok that it was drunk and to stop posting.
Aside from those companies that have pivoted entirely to Bitcoin treasury firms, many others who have started to accumulate some Bitcoin have been struggling companies.
Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Taipei-headquartered Kronos Research said recently that “when struggling firms make sudden moves, it often feels like a short-term stunt or hype play." On the other hand, he added:
“When a company builds a BTC treasury with strategy, conviction, and clear communication, it signals strength.”
Taking to social media on July 14, Belgian economist and Bitcoin investor Tuur Demeester set out his thoughts on the opportunity that Bitcoin treasury companies are exploiting:
“Who else in this world can borrow at below 0.5% interest rates, when real inflation is above 10%? Bitcoin Treasury companies seem to have found, or are creating, a growing hole in a giant dam.”
