Quick take:
- Blockchain Capital has raised $580 million for its sixth venture fund and first opportunity fund.
- Global payments giant, which also joined the crypto VC’s fifth fund was among the investors.
- Blockchain Capital maintains its long-term view on the crypto space, highlighting the perils of taking a short-term approach.
Blockchain Capital has launched two new funds. The crypto-focused venture capital firm on Monday said it raised $580 million for its sixth venture fund and first opportunity fund.
According to TechCrunch, the funds are allocated roughly two-thirds for the sixth venture fund and one-third for the opportunity fund. This announcement comes at a time when venture funding for crypto projects has been on a decline.
Blockchain Capital raised $300 million for its fifth venture fund in 2021, with global payment giants PayPal and Visa participating. The latter was also an active investor the the $580 million raised in the latest round.
“Over the past 20 months, we’ve invested more capital into the next generation of innovators than any other time in our history. The reason is simple: today’s market offers unprecedented opportunities, driven by an influx of highly skilled founders who are developing a diverse range of innovative technologies,” Blockchain Capital said on Monday.
The company has been one of the most active investors during the crypto winter including leading a $115 million Series C for the Worldcoin creator, Tools for Humanity and a $40 million Series A round for zero-knowledge (ZK) tech developer RISC Zero.
Speaking to TechCrunch about his firm’s vision for the new funds, Spencer Bogart, General Partner at Blockchain Capital said: “It’s doing more of what we’ve been doing for the past decade. This is our bread and butter, and we wanted to stay aligned with LPs [and] think about prior fund sizes, but still grow a bit.”
Unlike many VCs that now seem to have cooled their activity in the crypto space, Blockchain Capita has clearly continued to invest, and this is down to its long-term view of the industry. According to Blockchain Capital, the bear market has exposed the short terminism in some of the VCs’ strategies, highlighting the perils of taking a short-term approach.
The last two years “revealed the hazards of short-term thinking, exposing many who misjudged this nascent technology.”
****
Stay up to date:
Subscribe to our newsletter using this link – we won’t spam!
