CoinFund, a crypto-centric investment firm, has successfully raised $158 million for its CoinFund Seed IV Fund LP, eclipsing the original fundraising target of $125 million. The new funds will primarily back early-stage ventures in the burgeoning web3 ecosystem.
An Ambitious Journey for Web3 Ventures
CoinFund’s announcement signifies an ambitious journey to foster innovation in the world of decentralized web, or web3. This investment vehicle, supported by a mix of institutional investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals, will empower pre-seed and seed-stage startups. CoinFund has garnered a reputation for its dedicated investment approach since its inception in 2015 by Jake Brukhman, a Highbridge Capital Management and Amazon alum, and Alex Felix, an American Capital alum.
Now, CoinFund boasts a global team of nearly 30 members with over 100 investments across six investment vehicles. The firm has raised over $550 million in the last 18 months, led by Managing Partners whose focus areas include decentralization technologies, AI-web3 convergence, marketplaces, financial services, NFTs, and other web3-centric fields.
Strengthening the Web3 and AI Ecosystem
Recently, CoinFund has announced multiple noteworthy investments in a variety of web3 and AI projects. This list includes Cloudburst Technologies, focusing on digital currency fraud’s cyberthreat intelligence, Gensyn, a protocol for ML compute, Giza, an AI platform serving smart contracts and web3 protocols, Neutron, a layer 1 blockchain on Cosmos, and Superstate, dedicated to creating blockchain-based financial products.
A Collaboration to Shape Future Financial Instruments
Beyond investments, CoinFund has been contributing to the ecosystem in other ways. A recent collaboration with CoinDesk Indices birthed the Composite Ether Staking Rate (CESR). CESR, a dynamic global benchmark based on Ethereum’s Proof of Stake blockchain’s daily transaction fees and staking rewards, potentially paves the way for new financial instruments, including loans, bonds, futures, and swaps.