$40 Million For Brave New World With Web3

The fund was founded by Patrick Chang, an active angel investor in the crypto industry.

One of the latest companies, Dispersion Capital, specializing in cryptocurrencies, has launched a $40 million fund focused on early-stage investments in Web3 infrastructure projects. Limited liability partners supporting the fund include the venture division of USDC Circle issuer, Ripple, an enterprise-focused cryptocurrency firm, and the investment division of Web3 infrastructure giant Alchemy.

After enduring the crypto winter, the fund is opening up for business during an extended bear market for cryptocurrencies, which has slowed down investments in the space, although infrastructure projects have proven to be the most resilient sector.

“We are looking for teams that will address the current gaps in infrastructure and develop new standards for decentralized technology layers,” wrote Patrick Chang, founder and managing partner of Dispersion Capital, in his announcement. “Their work will enable the creation and launch of multi-chain, multi-currency, and multi-platform applications. We want to find and finance the foundational technological layers that will make this possible.”

Web3 is indeed on everyone’s lips, but why did the guys decide to change course from space and invest in another field?

Chang told TechCrunch that Dispersion Capital has already deployed around 10% of the fund, supporting 20 companies, including Chaos Labs, a network security platform, and Mystiko Network, a privacy infrastructure layer for Web3.

In his post, Chang noted that venture capital flooded into the crypto industry in 2021, with a primary focus on the so-called application layer of Web3 or decentralized applications (dApps) that facilitated user engagement in areas such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi). When the bull market gave way to a bear market, cryptocurrency infrastructure was left in short supply.

“The fundamental layer of Web3 was not (and still isn’t) ready for billions of users,” Chang wrote.

Chang, an active angel investor, spent 20 years in the venture capital field, including working at Bain Capital Ventures and Samsung Next. As a seasoned investor, Chang led investments in several cryptocurrency companies, including Alchemy, Dapper Labs, and Flow, he told CoinDesk in a statement.

Dispersion Capital has raised its first $40 million fund for investments in decentralized infrastructure, according to TechCrunch. The venture mechanism is supported by Web 2.0 and Web3 organizations, including WeMade, Circle Ventures, Ripple, Alchemy Ventures, NGC, and individual general partners. It will focus on deploying capital in early-stage and seed rounds and has already deployed 10% of the fund.

The evolution of blockchain infrastructure technology has been slow, said Patrick Chang, founder and managing partner of Dispersion Capital. “We believe there is much more to build.”

According to Chang, although Dispersion primarily focuses on companies in the United States, it actively invests in other regions as well. About a quarter of its active investments are based in Israel, but the firm is also seeking builders in Asia, considering the proliferation of developments for zero-knowledge (ZK) or zero-disclosure technologies in that region, Chang noted.

“Our task is how we can bring Web3 to a level similar to cloud computing, where it becomes an invisible technology that everyone uses without realizing it,” Chang said. “In the long term, the primary focus is on how we can bring Web3 to the masses and reach billions of users.”

Well, indeed, many investors, like the Dispersion Capital team, have made a wise decision by changing their investment focus. Today, we can observe that there is a large number of startups and developers working on improving Web3 infrastructure.