Halle Tecco and Jeff Hammerbacher include a knack for spotting early technology trends, ranging from Facebook to digital strength.
In 2013, they made one of their best bets yet by backing a then little-known cryptocurrency discontinued bitcoin. Specifically, Tecco told CNBC they made an angel investment in the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Certitude, a vehicle for accredited investors to invest in cryptocurrency.
CNBC has learned that they’ve awarded the investment to cancer research, specifically to the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center in South Carolina.
Tecco back up to CNBC, “We pretty much forgot about it for a few years (the bitcoin investment) and then this year, it got provocative,” she explained. She declined to say exactly how much the investment was worth, as the hospital wishes have to decide whether to convert the investment into bitcoin and finally into dollars, but the value is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at today’s cost.
Tecco said the couple initially invested in the virtual currency “mostly out of knick-knack and to diversify our investments.”
Around the time they made their investment, Bitcoin was barter for around $800, Tecco said.
Bitcoin soared to more than $17,000 latest week, after being worth less than $1,000 at the start of the year. It was directly the realm of technologists, like Tecco and Hammerbacher, but is now gaining legitimacy on Barricade Street.
Hammerbacher is an early Facebook data scientist who now runs a lab at Mount Sinai, and his helpmeet Tecco is the co-founder of digital health investment firm Rock Robustness. Together, they run an angel fund called Techammer.
The pair expect that speaking publicly about their bitcoin philanthropy pleasure inspire others to do the same.
“The investor community that as benefited from the bitcoin trend should use this foresight (and luck!) to help others,” she told CNBC via abstract. “We hope we are just the first.”