The world is becoming aware of the potential in blockchain technology. The rise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain protocols have created a new class of startup working to innovate on a new frontier. From alternative cryptocurrencies to companies who support the crypto ecosystem, we are witnessing the infrastructure-building phase of a new wave of technology.
At Visible, we talk to founders every day who are looking for investors. Our new Connect platform allows you to search our database of nearly 11,000 investors to do your own research, but in this post, we will be highlighting some of those investors in the blockchain space.
2020 Ventures
Stage: All Stages
Investment Geography: United States, Southeast Asia
Key person: David Williams
Blockchain investments: Bitpay, Polysign, Kava Networks, Ripple Labs, tokens like BTC, ETH, LINK, & more.
Thesis: 2020 Ventures doesn’t only invest in blockchain & crypto, but when they do invest in the space they make bets on both coins and companies in the space. They spend time primarily on payments & stores of Value, but also invest in DeFi, exchanges, and other projects.
Notation
Stage: Pre Seed
Investment Geography: New York, Agnostic
Key Person: Alex Lines and Nicholas Chirls
Blockchain Investments: Filecoin, Zepplin, Livepeer
Thesis: Notation capital explicitly says on their site that they are not thesis driven. Instead, they focus on writing the earliest checks into big ideas that are of interest to them. With deeply technical backgrounds, Notation is placing bets across many different sectors – blockchain being one of them. They’ve invested directly in protocols like Filecoin and in crypto-focused companies such as Bison Trails and Livepeer. You can read their operating principles on Github here.
Blockchain Valley Ventures
Stage: All stages
Investment Geography: Global
Blockchain Investments: Algotrader, Coinfirm, Keyless
Key People: Heinrich Zetlmayer
Thesis: Another hybrid advisory/investment firm, Blockchain Valley Ventures brings expertise to the blockchain space by helping projects of all kinds come to fruition. From corporate blockchain projects to startup ventures in the space, BVV is there to help with both capital and expertise.
Pillar VC
Stage: All stages
Investment Geography: United States, Northeast
Key People: Jamie Goldstein, Russ Wilcox, Sarah Hodges
Blockchain Investments: Algorand, Circle, LBRY
Thesis: Pillar is a highly founder focused VC fund that differentiates itself by investing in good founding teams. They invest across many categories, but found themselves as one of the first investors in new blockchain Algorand and several other crypto companies.
Boost VC
Stage: Accelerator/Seed
Investment Geography: Global
Key People: Adam Draper, Brayton Williams, Maddie Callander
Blockchain investments: Abra, Aragon, Filecoin, Ethereum, and many more
Thesis: Boost.vc invests in what they call ‘Sci-Fi Founders’ primarily via their accelerator. They have dozens of investments across many different frontier industries, primarily focusing on VR/AR, Crypto, and what they call ‘sci-fi’ investments.
Castle Island Ventures
Stage: All stages
Investment Geography: Global
Key People: Matthew Walsh, Nic Carter
Blockchain Investments: BlockFi, Zabo, Talos, and more
Thesis: Castle Island Ventures invests almost exclusively in public blockchain projects. They have conviction that public, permissionless blockchains will form a new economic infrastructure, and deploy capital using their past financial and crypto expertise in projects that support public blockchains.
Blockchers
Stage: Accelerator, Seed, Grants
Investment Geography: Europe
Blockchain Investments: Volvero, Blocksquare, and more
Thesis: Blockchers provides grants and occasional investments through their accelerator in the European Union. They are smaller than some of the other players on this list, but they’re a great option to explore if you’re building a blockchain based startup in Europe.
Kenetic Trading
Stage: Series A/Series B
Investment Geography: Global, but focusing on Asia
Key People: Jehan Chu, Daniel Weinberg
Blockchain Investments: BlockFi, Handshake, Alchemy, and many others
Thesis: Kenetic Capital is involved in a few different areas of crypto and blockchain markets. They invest in Series A and later blockchain companies like BlockFi and Handshake, and also are involved in cryptocurrency trading. They offer many sophisticated trading products and executes on advanced trading strategies with a team of experience software engineers and quantitative traders. Jehan Chu, the fund’s CEO, has played a major role in the building the blockchain community in Hong Kong and hosts meetups throughout Asia.
ConsenSys Ventures
Stage: Accelerator, All Stages
Investment Geography: Global
Key People: Min Teo, Joseph Lubin
Blockchain Investments: Compound, Gitcoin, Juno, and many others
Thesis: ConsenSys is a highly successful Ethereum software development company. They’ve built multiple hit products such as MetaMask, Codefi and Quorum. They’ve used their expertise to spin out an investment arm that has made investments to projects like Compound, Gitcoin, and many other protocols and infrastructure builders in the space. Just starting out? You can consider their hackathon or accelerator programs.
Placeholder VC
Stage: All Stages
Investment Geography: Global
Key People: Joel Monegro, Chris Burniske
Blockchain Investments: Magic, Nexus Mutual, 0x, Aragon, and many others
Thesis: Placeholder invests in new projects in the space that seek to build around cryptonetworks. Their thesis is that the advent of blockchains and their open-sourced nature will lead to a slow decline of the current tech monopolies of the day. The key reason: blockchains undermine the key advantage of tech giants: data monopolization. ‘crypto collapses the cost of building and scaling information networks by replacing centralized coordination with universal financial incentives.’ You can read their full investment thesis here.
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