A new blockchain-focused team has been established by Lightspeed Venture Partners to make investments in blockchain businesses in their early stages.
Investors have been apprehensive about the current crypto winter so far, but for serious proponents of the new technology, it appears like the time has come to focus even more on high-potential projects. A new blockchain-focused team called Lightspeed Fraction has been established by US venture capital company Lightspeed Venture Partners to make investments in blockchain businesses in their early stages.
An Innovative Crypto Investment Team
The news coincides with Lightspeed Venture Partners’ announcement of three new US funds with a combined total of $6.6 billion in funding and a $500 million fund devoted to early-stage entrepreneurs in India. The VC firm is currently in charge of assets worth $18 billion.
The firm’s choice to place significant bets on blockchain businesses is consistent with its investment thesis that the technology is “changing how network participants are incentivized, how startups within this ecosystem are funded, and how communities can coalesce their shared power to create change,” according to the statement.
The venture capital firm started investing in cryptocurrencies in 2013, considering digital assets to be a crucial technology that provides unheard-of changes to the world’s “underbanked or unbanked” population. Partner at Lightspeed Ravi Mhatre said:
“We believe the industry is still early in the transition from web2 to web3, and the collaboration between Lightspeed and Faction is a testament to our shared belief in the ways that cryptocurrency may help to develop a web that better serves underserved people around the world.”
Fundraising Amid the Bear Market
The same day, blockchain startup funding specialist Multicoin Capital also announced that its third fund had raised $430 million. Compared to the $100M it raised for its second fund, the sum has increased by 4.3x.
According to a media report, the company started raising money in the fourth quarter of last year and closed it in January of this year. Additionally, it is anticipated that later-stage ventures will receive $100 million or more while early-stage businesses would receive $500,000 to $25 million.
It’s important to note that Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain, the fund’s two largest limited partners, are also co-founders of Multicoin Capital. Samani stated that the company’s approach to making aggressive investments in Web3 and blockchain firms has not changed as a result of the current bear market.
Samani emphasized that it had “absolutely no impact” on Multicoin Capital with regard to concerns that the troubled company 3AC holding a stake in one of the company’s funds may put the venture under financial strain.
