Blockchain Capital closes funds totaling $580M for investments in crypto gaming, DeFi

Ven­ture cap­i­tal group Blockchain Cap­i­tal announced the clos­ing of two new funds, total­ing $580 mil­lion, for invest­ment in infra­struc­ture, gam­ing, DeFi, and con­sumer and social technologies.

The funds will oper­ate as Blockchain Capital’s sixth ear­ly stage fund and its first “oppor­tu­ni­ty fund,” with the lat­ter serv­ing as an inroad to com­pa­nies who’ve already secured major fund­ing elsewhere.

We’re thrilled to share the clos­ing of 2 new funds – our 6th ear­ly stage fund and 1st oppor­tu­ni­ty fund.

Togeth­er, they total $580 mil­lion and serve to rein­force our com­mit­ment to lead­ing the glob­al tran­si­tion to decen­tral­ized, blockchain-based sys­tems. ↓https://t.co/Vr2uYnGlF7

— Blockchain Cap­i­tal (@blockchaincap) Sep­tem­ber 18, 2023

Accord­ing to a press release from Blockchain Capital:

“The end game is to ele­vate per­son­al empow­er­ment by grant­i­ng indi­vid­u­als con­trol over their dig­i­tal and finan­cial lives through inno­v­a­tive blockchain-enabled appli­ca­tions and ser­vices. It’s this vision of a democ­ra­tized and dis­trib­uted future that guides our pas­sion and invest­ment decisions.”

The funds’ com­bined $580 mil­lion will be split, with $380 mil­lion report­ed­ly going to the ear­ly stage fund and the rest ear­marked for the oppor­tu­ni­ty fund. It’s unclear at this time exact­ly what types of projects the invest­ment fund will prioritize. 

Accord­ing to the press release, the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue its trend of invest­ing in infra­struc­ture, DeFi, gam­ing, and oth­er finance, blockchain and cryp­tocur­ren­cy opportunities. 

How­ev­er, the press release also men­tions that Blockchain Capital’s strat­e­gy “isn’t about sec­tors; it’s about har­ness­ing blockchain tech­nol­o­gy to realign incen­tives, reestab­lish user trust and reengi­neer the social con­tract of our increas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world.”

Relat­ed: Cryp­to com­pa­nies form Texas blockchain group to advo­cate for clear regulations

“Indeed, the cryp­to market’s volatil­i­ty these past 20 months revealed the haz­ards of short-term think­ing, expos­ing many who mis­judged this nascent tech­nol­o­gy,” writes Blockchain Cap­i­tal in the release, adding lat­er that “over the past 20 months we’ve invest­ed more cap­i­tal into the next gen­er­a­tion of inno­va­tors than any oth­er time in our history.”

The lat­est funds closed are among the largest in cryp­tocur­ren­cy or blockchain his­to­ry and the most ever accrued by Blockchain Cap­i­tal. How­ev­er, this shouldn’t be inter­pret­ed as a sig­nal that the firm intends to con­tin­u­al­ly increase fund sizes.

Speak­ing to TechCrunch, one of the firm’s part­ners, Spencer Bog­a­rt, said that the firm had “no intent to expand and become an AI fund or hedge fund and trade tokens,” adding that he didn’t see future funds “becom­ing much larg­er than what you see here.”