Announcing Acrylic

Archetype
2 min readJul 7, 2021

--

Acrylic is an early-stage venture firm focused on backing the next generation of crypto founders and accelerating the decentralized future.

I am ecstatic to announce Acrylic I, a $55M venture fund dedicated entirely to supporting the next wave of crypto entrepreneurs in the earliest days of protocol and company building.

The crypto landscape has evolved drastically since I made my first investment in the space in 2015. As crypto markets have matured, my belief is that crypto-networks and smart contracts will underpin every future digital interaction. Industries that have historically been dominated by a select few firms are going to see a mass transformation, and entirely new industries will be created by the new breed of founders. We are seeing this in real time as Wall Street is wavering between combativeness or acceptance of crypto, and seeing early indicators in art, music, social networks, and marketplaces.

Crypto will continue infiltrating existing markets and create entirely new domains. Crypto natively ties compute and value, and in a similar fashion to “software eating the world”, crypto-networks will supercharge software. The internet democratized data transfer; crypto will democratize value transfer.

Today, there are dozens of incredible investment firms focused on this burgeoning industry, and many have evolved to manage hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars. There is no shortage of capital or choices for entrepreneurs.

Against this backdrop, Acrylic was purposefully built to do what I do best — identify, support, and accelerate the builders in crypto at their earliest stages. Acrylic’s focus within crypto is quite broad, and will iterate as founders unleash step functions in innovation. Early stage crypto investing is an art, not a science.

Our HQ is in Brooklyn, NY, but will have a global focus towards our investments. To date, we have invested in four protocols and companies, and are actively seeking founders looking to evolve the status quo, regardless of macro inertia — my inbox is welcome to you: ash at acrylic dot co.

ash’s corona dog (acrylic on canvas)

Acrylic provides inception capital for founders that will evolve the status quo, entrepreneurs capable of creating entirely new markets, and those maniacally dedicated to their craft regardless of macro inertia.

--

--