Itaú Ventures continues its investment rhythm since it dissolved Kinea last year to run its CVC in-house. Now, the vehicle has announced its third contribution, leading a series A in Minter, a company specializing in infrastructure for data centers for mining crypto assets.
The round, whose value was not disclosed, also included the participation of Leste Group, Legend Capital and individual investors operating in the sector. This is the third investment by Itaú Ventures, whose checks are usually in the range of R$20 million to R$50 million.
Founded in 2023, Minter was founded by experienced executives in the digital mining, energy and financial market sectors, with experience at names such as Hashdex, CleanSpark, ATL Data Centers and others. The company’s focus addresses a basic challenge of these infrastructures: energy.
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The company’s thesis is based on a structural characteristic of the Brazilian electrical system. The country has one of the most renewable energy matrices in the world, but the rapid growth of intermittent sources (such as solar and wind) has increased episodes of mandatory generation cuts, known in the industry as curtailment.
Minter’s proposal is to mitigate the impacts of these episodes through the installation of mobile data centers next to the renewable plants affected by these cuts. Because they are at the point of generation, DCs are able to absorb electricity that would otherwise be subject to curtailment and can be turned off quickly when there is a need to inject energy into the grid.
As CEO Stefano Sergole explains, surplus electricity is converted into computing power, monetizing it through cryptocurrency mining. With this thesis, before attracting Itaú, Minter had already raised a seed check with the family offices Oikos and Luxor.
“This is a tool that inverts the traditional logic of the electricity sector. Instead of taking energy to the consumer, we take the consumer to the point of generation”, says Stefano, who before leading Minter, was one of the founders of Hashdex.
Use of resources
With the capital injection, Minter will expand its portfolio in Brazil. Currently, the company already has a 20 MW project in operation in the city of Xique-Xique, in the interior of Bahia.
The plan is to aggressively expand the number of contracted structures, reaching at least double the capacity at the end of this year and 500 MW in three years – and Itaú arrives as a strong intermediary to connect Minter with the large national generators.
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However, in addition to opportunities in Brazil, the startup has its eye on the North American market, where digital mining infrastructure is increasingly being integrated with data centers focused on high-performance applications, such as AI training.
According to information from the bank itself, this is the third contribution since the creation of Itaú Ventures, a vehicle that was created after the internalization of Kinea. Before Minter, the CVC had already announced investments in fintech Kanastra, made right after the announcement of the new structure. The vehicle’s other contribution was not disclosed.
In the view of Phillippe Schlumpf, superintendent of Itaú Ventures, the Minter round also opens up space for the development of products and services linked to the digital asset ecosystem. Among the possibilities under study are settlement and custody solutions for mined Bitcoins, in addition to the possibility of trading new categories of assets, of “clean” origin.
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“Minter’s thesis combines two relevant vectors: the expansion of renewable generation and the growing demand for computing infrastructure. With these investments, we seek to support a solution that addresses curtailment in a flexible way, close to the point of generation, with operational discipline and attention to governance. This movement is in line with Itaú Ventures’ mandate to invest in strategic innovation with synergy with the bank’s business”, highlights the executive.
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