NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fund launched last month by former macro hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz and global blockchain company Block.One led a group of institutions that invested $30 million in online encyclopedia Everipedia, Everipedia President Sam Kazemian said.

Mike Novogratz speaks during the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit in New York, U.S., November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Everipedia launched in 2015 with the goal of becoming an alternative to Wikipedia, the company said. The funding will help create an open source, peer-to-peer information network, Kazemian told Reuters.

“This investment will allow us to build the infrastructure for ... a global, decentralized, neutral forum that can credibly discover the best of our knowledge,” Larry Sanger, Everipedia chief information officer and co-founder of Wikipedia, said in a statement.

With the new funding, Kazemian also said the company had no plans for an initial coin offering - when startups create and sell virtual tokens to investors to raise funds.

“In my opinion, a lot of the ICOs are mainly done to get funding and after the company raises what it needs, it essentially becomes a cash grab,” said Kazemian, adding the $30 million investment was an equity transaction.

In backing the deal, Novogratz said he was looking forward to the “growth of a more modern and inclusive encyclopedia that puts the world’s knowledge on the blockchain.”

Blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other digital currencies, is a digital ledger that provides a secure way of making and recording transactions.

Novogratz’s $325-million new fund, EOS.IO Ecosystem, is a joint venture between his Galaxy Digital LP, a digital assets merchant bank, and Block.one, the developer of blockchain software EOS. In 2017, Block.one launched a year-long token sale for EOS which had raised at least $700 million as of the fourth quarter last year.

Everipedia said its open-source software will be developed on top of EOS.IO’s blockchain platform.

Distributed Network Advisors, whose partner includes venture capitalist Brock Pierce, had also invested in Everipedia, Kazemian said.