CoinFund, a crypto-specific investment firm, announced the launch of a $300M venture capital fund to support early-stage blockchain projects, signalling investor confidence in an industry plagued by a bear market.
According to the press release, the firm is one of the longest-running web3 venture capitalists, having invested an estimated $1B in seed-stage startups.
Investments
The new fund will invest in layer-1 blockchains, web3 infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs, and gaming, payments, asset management, exchanges, marketplaces, and decentralised applications. The funds will be invested over a two- to three-year period.
CoinFund, which was founded in 2015 by Jake Brukhman, previously concentrated on bitcoin (BTC) and seed stage investments in decentralised finance (DeFi) projects. Dapper Labs, the creator of NBA Top Shot, blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon, and data indexing protocol The Graph are among the portfolio companies. Successful portfolio companies that went on to raise Series A rounds expressed a desire to continue working with the firm, which did not have an investment vehicle at the time.
Ventures I will be led by David Pakman, Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investing at CoinFund, who said, “Tech entrepreneurs and venture investors are taught to look for architectural transitions that disrupt past models and create new ground for companies to build enormous value. In my 30 years in tech, I have never seen a bigger opportunity than crypto and web3. Web3 entrepreneurs clearly appreciate cryptonative investing teams as helpful allies, and we look forward to working with ambitious and driven entrepreneurs to build a permissionless, decentralized and community-owned internet, rewire the global financial system, and unlock enormous value for intellectual property.”
Several CoinFund seed-stage portfolio companies are preparing to raise Series A funding and want to continue working with CoinFund’s crypto-native investing team. In addition to making venture-scale investments in current portfolio firms, I plan to work with new founding teams.
The CoinFund Ventures I fund is expected to invest in 30 to 40 startups, with each organisation receiving funds ranging from $6M to $10M.
Fund backing
CoinFund’s Web3 fund is backed by Venrock, Adams Street Partners, Teacher Retirement System of Texas, Theta Capital Management, StepStone Group, and Accolade Partners.
