DESPITE RECENT CRASH, INVESTORS PUT NEW MONEY INTO CRYPTO

Last week, Toronto firm Round 13 Capital announced it had filled a $70-million dollar fund that will be invested in blockchain companies and hopes to add another $30 million to it.

The company already has channeled $15 million into six deals and expects to have all the money rehoused within two years.

“This is the most opportune time to invest,” Round 13 co-founder Satraj Bambra told The Wall Street Journal. “We’re seeing more talent go into this space.”

Haun Ventures has raised $1.5 billion in two funds to put into digital-asset firms, which we reported in “New Venture Funds Raise $1.5 Billion for Web3 Deals” (29 Mar 2022).

Also in March, Bain Capital Crypto pooled $560 million and hired 10 managers who quickly deployed $160 million into a dozen investments.

Venture firms raised $11.92 billion in this year’s first quarter to invest in the digital asset realm, about the same amount as in the final quarter of 2024 and 24 times more than in the first quarter of 2021, according to data service Dove Metrics.

About $9 billion of that money found homes in crypto-related ventures during the first three months of 2022, CB Insights said. The pace has slowed since, with about $3.9 billion being invested in this quarter to 20 May.

Despite crypto’s ups and down, investors keep funneling in money because they believe blockchain technology will underlie the emerging structure of a new Internet architecture, partner Marc Blumenthal at Florida Funders, said to the WSJ.