Predicting The 5 Most Active VCs in Blockchain/Cryptocurrencies in 2018 🚀
Last year was certainly a year to remember for the blockchain and cryptocurrency community.
- Bitcoin hit $20,000 and was the talk of almost every family’s holiday dinners.
- The total market cap for all cryptocurrencies grew to half a trillion dollars globally.
- The ICO (initial coin offering) became an extremely popular way for new companies to raise funding while forgoing the traditional venture capital route.
Despite the ICO craze, 2017 also brought a record-breaking $1.3 billion from VCs’ checkbooks to startup founders. Furthermore, venture-backed standouts like Coinbase and Ripple became multibillion-dollar unicorn companies. which surely whet the appetites for VCs, who were previously too risk averse to the space.
Without further ado, here are the list of VCs who we at KnowYourVC think will be the most active investors in this space in 2018.
1. Peter Thiel, Founders Fund
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel made headlines earlier this week when it was reported that the $13 million that his fund put into Bitcoin in mid 2017 is now worth over $100 million dollars. This made him one of the first VCs to put that much institutional money into the cryptocurrency. We expect that Founders Fund will continue to take sizable positions in established cryptocurrencies as well as make earlier bets on new projects this year.
2. Garry Tan, Initialized Capital
Garry Tan is a Managing Partner at Initialized Capital. The former Y Combinator Partner has been extremely vocal on Twitter talking about the various projects he is excited about and has personally invested in like Ethereum and RaiBlocks. He is also one of the earliest investors in recent unicorn, Coinbase, and will continue to seek out the newest and brightest companies in the space.
3. Alice Lloyd George, RRE Ventures
Alice Lloyd George is a Principal at RRE Ventures and has spent the past few years building an impressive investment portfolio of companies in the blockchain space, including Ripple, Bitpay, and 21. She has written about blockchain companies in publications such as TechCrunch, and she is sure to continue to lead the way with investing in the most exciting companies in this booming space.
4. Joey Krug, Pantera Capital
Joey Krug was recently brought on as Chief Investment Officer to head up a new $100M fund at Pantera Capital exclusively focused on block chain and cryptocurrencies. Additionally, Joey is the co-founder of Augur, the very first token project built on Ethereum, which has a market cap of over $1 billion dollars. With a rare mix of operating and investing experience, we expect him to make a big splash this year.
5. Bart Stephens, Blockchain Capital
Bart Stephens is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blockchain Capital, the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in the blockchain sector. They were also the first venture fund to raise through an ICO. With over 80 investments across three funds, Brad and Blockchain Capital team have established themselves as some of the most prolific investors in the space.
