Top 20 Blockchain And Cryptocurrency Investors
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Polychain Capital
Polychain Capital is a cryptocurrency VC and hedge fund. Polychain started to make headlines in February 2018 after it became the first crypto fund to have more than $1 billion in assets under management. These assets comprise of cryptocurrency assets, equity in companies, and unspent cash pledged from investors. Polychain’s list of limited partners includes Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Bain, and Bessemer. It has now become a vehicle for institutional investors to taste the investments in the digital assets market. Polychain is not interested in algorithmic tradings and quantitative strategies although people believe Polychain to be using them seeing ‘hedge fund’ in their descriptions. The fund focuses on ongoing high potential projects. According to their CEO, this potential is determined by the technology behind the company they are investing, and how that technology is improving the novelty of the blockchain. The fund did not perform well in 2018 and as a consequence, the team fired Ryan Zenner, who was a Principal and Venture Partner.
Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures is a private equity and venture capital firm. The firm announced its plans to invest in blockchain and cryptocurrency companies in June 2018. Since then, the investor has added various companies in its portfolio. The company was founded in 2003 and since then, it has invested in various start-ups such as Behance, Etsy, Indeed, MongoDB, and Twitter. Union Square has managed to get billion dollars of exits every year since 2011. The firm’s founder Fred Wilson is considered to be a celebrated name with a high public profile in the tech world. USV plans to invest for the long term in cryptocurrency companies despite the worsening bear markets. In the blockchain market, most of the USV’s investments are made in DApps or support DApps. Two of its famous investments in the crypto industry were Coinbase and Cryptokitties. USV, with Andreessen Horowitz, has also been in constant meetings with SEC to decide the regulations and exemptions the markets can have for cryptocurrencies.
Y Combinator
Founded in 2005, Y Combinator is one of the US’s top accelerators. Y Combinator usually invests in seed rounds. It provides financing services and business consulting to the start-ups in return for at least 7% equity of the companies. Y Combinator shortlists two batches of companies per year. Y Combinator had been previously backed by various investors including Sequoia Capital, SV Angels, and Transcriptic. Y Combinator made its interest in blockchain companies public when its China division expressed interest in August last year. Since then, the company has invested in more than 18 companies in the blockchain space. This number is expected to grow more with more adaptation of the technology. Y Combinator in its filings registers annual revenue of about $10 million. It holds a stiff competition for other large accelerators like TechStars, 500 Startups, and AngelPad. Y Combinator has been called by Fast Company “the world’s most powerful start-up incubator”. Adding to this, Forbes ranked YC one of two “Platinum Plus Tier US Accelerators” in 2017. Quantstamp, a highly regarded blockchain company, is one of the Y Combinator alumni.
Digital Currency Group
Digital Currency Group is a venture capital company and incubator focusing on the digital currency market. Founded in 2015, the company holds a massive portfolio of more than 100 blockchain and cryptocurrency companies in 30 countries with around $600 million in assets under management. Digital Currency Group operates as an investment arm of DCG Holdco, Inc. According to the team, the investors focus on the companies building the foundation or producing innovations in the blockchain ecosystem. DCG has been an early investor in the majority of the big game players such as Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Blockchain.com, Ledger, Ripple, and Shapeshift. The firm acquired Coindesk, one of the largest Cryptocurrency online media and news portal, in 2016. One of DCG’s subsidiary, Genesis Trading, is an institutional trading firm which provides liquidity to buyers and sellers. Grayscale Investments is the second subsidiary of DCG which manages 8 products including the first Bitcoin investment vehicle, the Bitcoin Investment Trust.
IDG Capital
IDG Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm from China specializing in start-up, every growth stage, pre-IPO, and, mergers and acquisitions. The company has been in business since 1992 and has profound experience in the investment and incubation space. IDG capital has always been fond of technology and fintech companies. This was one of the main reason it decided to explore the blockchain space. Other sectors where IDG invests are media and telecommunications, healthcare, network securities, consumer products, chain stores, and retail services, real estate, entertainment, sports, and e-commerce. The company prefers to invest in companies from China, Africa, Middle East, USA, and Latin America. The investments by IDG Capital range from $0.1 million to $75 million. The offices of IDG Capital are located in China, Hong Kong, and the United States. The firm operates as a subsidiary of IDG Ventures. Some of IDG’s famous investments include Ripple, Circle, Mars Finance, and imToken.
Winklevoss Capital
The Winklevoss Twins are among the richest cryptocurrency investors in the world. Winklevoss Capital was founded in 2012. The company works as a family office headquartered in NYC, USA. The firm has invested across multiple asset class but their favorite investment strategy still lies in investing in seed and early-stage rounds. In 2012, the twin brothers revealed their holdings in Bitcoin. In 2013, they completed their SEC filings and created the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, an exchange-traded fund for Bitcoin. In 2018, 9 ETF applications of Winklevoss twins have been rejected by SEC. The twin brothers also founded Gemini exchange, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange which allows customers to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies. In September 2018, the crypto exchange announced the launch of a USD pegged Gemini stable coin built on the ERC-20 standard. The company plans to expand the presence of their exchange in the UK and to file applications for regulatory approval. Both brothers have been very actively investing in cryptocurrency companies. They have invested in more than 20 companies primarily focused on building hardware or software infrastructure for the blockchain industry.
Danhua Capital
Danhua Capital is a venture capital firm specializing in seed, Series A, early and growth stage start-ups. The firm was founded in 2013 and is based in California, USA. DHVC has explored the majority of the technologies with their investments. Their portfolio on their website has been divided into 4 categories — Consumer/Fintech, Enterprise/Big Data, Life Sciences/Digital Health, and Blockchain. Blockchain being a stand-alone category clearly shows their propensity towards blockchain companies. Their investments are in Information Technology, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, new materials, energy, blockchain, robotics and automation, and wearable devices sectors. The investor has a massive portfolio of more than 150 companies and has invested in more than 20 blockchain companies including Zilliqa, Blockfolio, Kyber Network, Origin Protocol, and Hedera Hashgraphs. The company’s Founding Chairman Shoucheng Zhang, who passed away in December 2018, was a celebrated physicist and a member of US National Academy of Science. The other founding partner, Andrew Gu, is also a Ph.D. in Applied Physics. The two have worked together to build DHVC from 0 to a $600 million fund as it stands today.
Blockchain Capital
Blockchain Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in companies which are using blockchain technology. The company was founded in 2013 by Bart Stephens, Bradford Stephens, and Brock Pierce. Blockchain Capital is headquartered in California, USA. Blockchain Capital was one of the first funds to accept capital calls in Bitcoin. The company has invested in more than 75 companies in the blockchain sector. It has invested in all the stage rounds. Blockchain Companies conduct namely seed round, Serie rounds, and ICOs. The list of companies Blockchain Capital has recently invested in includes Securitize, Civic, Coinbase, Blockstream, SFOX, Kraken, and Alphapoint. Blockchain Capital raised funds in two stages. In 2016, the company raised $13 million. In its second stage, Blockchain Capital raised a whopping $150 million in 2018. Ripple is observed to be the most heard supporter of Blockchain Capital. The executives from the fund have been very vocal about the optimism they see in cryptocurrencies. The fund invests only in long-term strategies and is not involved in trading divisions.
The company is again raising funds in an attempt to take cryptocurrencies and Ripple has again come forward to provide support in this motive.
500 Startups
500 Startups is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The company is based in California, USA. In 2012, 500 Startups acquired Mexican VC, an accelerator in Mexico City, and Alta Ventures to expand its base in Mexico. By 2015, 500 Startups had invested in over 1200 companies. 500 Startups has additional locations in North America, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and South America. 500 Startups has specialization in investing in seed investments, small and medium-sized start-ups, early stage, post-seed, pre-series A, and late stage. 500 Startups has a vast portfolio in companies involved in Information Technology, Saas, Payment portals, Bitcoin, Blockchain, e-commerce, e-learning, fintech, Ad-tech, internet of things, gaming, financial services, mobile or tablet platforms, virtual reality, education, logistics, consumer commerce, design, family and healthcare, web infrastructure, insurance, insuretech, and many other. The firm usually invests $0.05 million and $1 million for a 5–10% stake. The company also offers a 4-month accelerator program in which it prefers to acquire two percent equity in return for $10,000. 500 Startups has invested in more than 25 blockchain companies.
Andreessen Horowitz
A16Z represents the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Netscape, is considered as a living legend in the Silicon Valley. Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm founded in 2009. It is based in California, USA. A16Z capital prefers to invest in IT companies involved in the businesses of social media, SaaS, back-end infrastructure of the internet, cloud computing, fintech, business internet, mobile-internet, web browsers, electronics, network functions, biotech, healthcare, e-commerce, and recently blockchain. Some of the big names include Twitter, Facebook, Airbnb, and Lyft. The firm has invested in between $0.1 million to $100 million in the companies. The firm also seeks board representation in the companies it invests in. Most of the companies A16Z has invested in are spread across the North American continent. The majority of these companies have sprouted from Silicon Valley. A16Z was witnessed investing heavily in cryptocurrencies last year. In June 2018, A16Z announced a $300 Million Crypto Fund focused only on the investments of cryptocurrencies. The company backed the billion dollars cryptofund Polychain Capital. A16Z along with Polychain Capital invested heavily in Dfinity Foundation which was created by engineers from Google, Microsoft, and Intel. A16Z also has early stakes in Ripple and Coinbase.
Hyperchain Capital
Hyperchain Capital is a digital asset hedge fund which was founded by Stelian Balta, in 2016, who is the CEO of the company. Stelian has vast trading experience in financial markets. He has managed investment funds for investors around the globe, with a focus in private equity, business development, and product strategies. The company’s headquarters is in Singapore, and they have a solid track record as being early investors in emerging blockchain projects, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and decentralized protocols. HyperChain’s philosophy is to do good, as an early participant and consultant to Blockchain protocol projects and organizations that support innovative technologies. They have a large number of portfolio investments, which allows them to offer a diversified spread to potential investors. Hyperchain Capital also provides consultancy services to the companies it invests in. It has invested in around 40 companies primarily focussed on the blockchain. Most recently Hyperchain Capital made news when it invested in crypto portfolio platform Coindash.
BlueYard Capital
BlueYard Capital is a crypto venture capital fund based in Berlin, Germany and founded in 2016. BlueYard invests in a variety of early-stage companies involved with decentralized infrastructure and blockchain as well as in some Initial Coin Offerings. BlueYard was founded by Ciarán O’Leary and Jason Whitmire. The crypto fund has invested in around 20 companies with more than $120 million in assets under management. BlueYard has been the lead investor in 13 of them.
The investments by Blueyard Capital range from $0.5 million to $6 million. Two of the famous cryptocurrency platforms Blueyard Capital has invested in are OpenBazaar and OB1. Majority of the companies Blueyard Capital has invested in are in Europe or in the USA. BlueYard Capital has now stepped out of the blockchain space and has started investing in the companies not working on blockchain. In October 2018, it announced two such investments, Pitch and Meatable, in which Blueyard was the lead investor.
TechStars
Techstars is an American seed accelerator founded in 2006 in Colorado USA. The company has invested in more than 1,000 companies altogether having a market capitalization of around $10 billion. TechStars has a global presence with investments in more than 45 countries around the world. Countries which Techstars prefer investing are from North and Latin America, the Middle East, and the Asian Pacific region. It shortlists 10 companies every year to invest in summer. The firm generally invests only in Fintech and technology companies. This predisposition has lead Techstars to explore the blockchain space. TechStars has invested in around 25 companies which are using blockchain in their infrastructure. TechStars does not invest in healthcare, medical companies, biotech, consultancy, or any local service-oriented companies. TechStars has also invested in other technologies like AR/VR, Internet of Things, and AI. In 2017, Techstars partnered with Partech Ventures to expand its presence in France. TechStars usually invests $0.01 million with another $0.01 million convertible debt note. They also offer a 3-month accelerator program with a funding of $0.12 million in return of equity for the companies. It prefers to take a minority stake with 6–10% stake and receives founders stocks in the portfolio companies.
GBIC
GBIC is a cryptocurrency and blockchain investor and accelerator founded in 2017 in New York, USA. GBIC also has its offices in Shanghai and Seoul. Projects in which GBIC has invested in are TTC Protocol, Origo, Hadron, Logos Network, and Ankr Network. Global Blockchain Innovative Capital, or GBIC, founded by Minui Chen and two friends, Richard Lee and Yaxi Xu, from Columbia, started consulting for these projects and helping them connect with overseas cryptocurrency exchanges, investors and legal consultants. He with his other partners has led the fund to return of 516 % on its portfolio which includes Eximcain, IoTeX, Nebulas, and ICON. On March 2018, a new company, Block 72, was separated from GBIC to operate as an independent consulting business, while GBIC continues to focus on investment. The current valuation of Block 72 is $50 million and has now become a successful blockchain consulting firm for the startups.
Pre-Angel Fund
PreAngel Fund is a $100M fund focused on early-stage mobile internet startups. They kick start capable teams and promising ideas with 100K RMB ~ 5M RMB, advisory services, and unparalleled access to a tight-knit network of industry professionals and companies. To date, PreAngel has made 300+ investments globally, including Robotera, Keys, Aeris, and Sensay. It has invested in 5–7 blockchain and cryptocurrency companies. Some of them from this list are Origin Protocol, MoonX, Lendchain, and CoinVoice. The firm is headquartered in Beijing, China and has invested in more than 200 start-ups in China and USA. The net amount PreAngel Fund has invested in blockchain companies only stands at $5 million. PreAngel usually invests in between 0.1 million to 1 million RMB in the start-ups in return of the equity of the company. It also provides consultancy, guidance in operations, business model refinement, and market resources to the company it invests in.
Fenbushi Capital
Fennbushi Capital is the first China-based venture capital that invests exclusively in companies operating on blockchain technology. Fenbushi was founded in 2015, and the company immediately set to work to establish itself and its goal, claiming its mission on its website as an organization “to accelerate the inevitable future of blockchain economy by supporting as many companies as possible.” The companies are clients associated with blockchain which are supported by the VC are Symbiont, Circle, Hashed Health, and the prominent privacy coin Zcash. Fenbushi also has some notable names on its team of advisors, with Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin taking a role in the company (which was general manager, before he stepped down from the position) and bringing a wealth of knowledge and credibility to the team. The cryptocurrency fund holds a $50 million USD price tag and the focus of the capital is towards blockchain-based companies through initial coin offering (ICO) investments and offering to invest in companies in their seed rounds. The firm currently has seventeen investments with two leads and have no exit strategies listed for the fund.
Metastable
Metastable is a cryptocurrency hedge fund based in California, USA. Metastable was founded in 2015 by Naval Ravikant and Lucas Ryan. Initially, Metastable was backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures, and Founders Fund. Founder Naval Ravikant has invested in some of the tech unicorns like Twitter, Uber, Change.org, Codeacademy, Disqus, and Foursquare. He has also invested in 21 Inc, Blockstack, and Kraken. He has also founded CoinList, a financial services provider for ICOs that listed the recent token sales of Filecoin and Blockstack. Metastable has delivered impressive performance in the last two years. The investor is also trying investing in stable coins with the growing interest of stable coins in the market, especially among the institutional investors. Metastable currently has around $70 million in assets under management and follows a buy-and-hold strategy.
Pantera Capital
Pantera Capital is a California based investment firm exclusively focused on ventures, tokens, digital assets, and other blockchain based companies. It manages $810 million of assets currently across 2 venture funds and 4 cryptocurrency funds. Pantera Capital has proven to be a sure-shot destination for institutional and accredited investors who are willing to invest $100,000 or more in blockchain-enabled companies. In August 2018, a report revealed that it negated 40.8% returns to its investors. Bearish trends in the cryptocurrency market since January was the main reason for these losses. Some of the major investments of Pantera Capital ar Ethereum, ICON, Filecoin, OmisGo, Augur, Ripple, and Ox decentralized exchange. The firm has also invested in more than 65 companies out of which 25 has been the blockchain using companies. On December 2018, Pantera Capital raised another $175 million for its third venture fund.
Pantera Capital has also invested in FX investments, equity investments, fixed income securities, and commodity markets. The firm generally relies on a macroeconomic analysis of the markets and the companies for its investments.
Boost VC
Boost VC is artificial intelligence, blockchain, and crypto accelerator based in San Mateo, California. Boost began its foray into blockchain investments in 2014 with a seed round in Ripio. Since then, they have made more than 30 additional investments in crypto and blockchain including almost a dozen in the last 12 months, making them one of the world’s most active venture capital/accelerators in blockchain. Led by the son of blockchain industry’s most influential figure Tim Draper, Adam Draper has invested in more than 40 blockchain companies. He co-founded the firm in 2011 with Brayton Williams. Boost VC has more than $50 million in assets under management. Some of his famous blockchain and cryptocurrency investments are Ledger, Coinbase, ad Libra Credit Network. Other than blockchain, Boost VC prefers to invest in IT, fintech, virtual reality, and the internet of things companies. Boost VC invests $0.01 — $0.05 million in return of 7–9% stake in the company with a three-month program.
Node Capital
Node Capital is a venture capital firm which mostly invests in blockchain companies. It primarily makes seed and Series A investments in ICO or seed funding rounds of the companies. The firm is based in Beijing, China and is considered to be one of the most active blockchain investors in China. Node Capita was co-founded by Jun Du, CEO of Cointime, in 2017. He is also the founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi.com. Node Capital has invested in more than two dozen blockchain companies. Outside blockchain, Node Capital has invested in 20 other companies producing innovations in other sectors like IT, data services, and entertainment. Some of the most recent blockchain investments done by Node Capital are News, One, MoonX, Bhex.com, Ankr Network, and HUB. Node Capital uses data science and big data to build investment vehicles to evaluate cryptocurrency exchanges and find the most efficient trading paths. The company also assists investment management firms, hedge funds, funds of funds, VC firms, private equity funds, and private wealth managers with its data science trading and analytics tools.
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