US-based web3 VC mapping
Discover more from Let's Fucking Build by Jericho
US-based web3 VC mapping
We gathered data from 120+ US-based web3 VC funds.
Jericho is the web3 founder community. Meet, learn & build with 400+ hand-picked founders from 40+ countries.
Hi frens - Moon speaking,
I’m convinced Jericho can be taken back. It’s just a matter of time. The thing is, as soon as it’s done, we’ll need to massively invest in building it back up from the ruins left behind by the Goblins.
Investors used to be a normal sight in Jericho, they even formed their own clan along the Founders, Operators and Freelancers. Represented by Eagles, they were respected by many for their sharp, holistic thinking. But now they’re laying low, scattered across the metaverse; it took us a lot of time to find & identify them.
Find below the list of investors we came up with in the process.
For the next edition: Should we first improve our army’s mental strength (mental fitness for web3 builders) or observe the Goblins’ behavior (web3 observability)?
Data
Even more important than the mapping is the data.
We gathered data from 120+ US-based web3 VC funds using their websites and Crunchbase profiles. We’ve carefully handpicked only the funds that still appear to be active in the space.
We also qualified the funds using the following criteria:
Fund type: Is the fund web3 native, is it a web2 fund investing in web3, or is it a web3 company’s venture arm?
Investment stage: Does it mainly invest in early-stages (pre-seed, seed), across stages, or only in later stages (Series A & above)?
Industry: Infrastructure, Exchanges, DeFi, NFT, DAO, Gaming
Web3 investments: The number of web3 companies they’ve invested in
Lead ratio: The percentage of investments where the fund led the round
Investments include: 3 examples of companies they’ve invested in
You can find the full list of funds here. Feel free to download the CSV for your own use.
Mapping methodology
From this comprehensive list, we decided to do a visual mapping.
The mapping is based on two factors:
Is the fund investing early-stage or across stages? We removed the late-stage-only funds because there weren’t many of them. Plus, web3 is a relatively young industry where early-stage capital is needed more than is growth capital.
What is the fund type (Web3 native, Web2 OGs, Institutional)?
Assessing the performance of the funds was impossible due to a lack of data. For the mapping, we decided to select the most active ones per category based on their number of web3 investments and their lead ratio.
This is a map, not a territory. We surely made some mistakes categorizing the funds, & getting numbers right, and probably missed some funds in the process. Feel free to ping us on Twitter if you can add good info!
Examples of web3 native funds
Polychain: Invested across stages in 161 web3 companies (52% lead ratio) such as Coinbase, Maker & Starkware
Pantera: Invested across stages in 201 web3 companies (39% lead ratio) such as Circle, Polkadot & Alchemy
Paradigm: Invested across stages in 85 web3 companies (63% lead ratio) such as Coinbase, OpenSea & Cosmos
Shima Capital: Invested early in 151 web3 companies (13% lead ratio) such as Klima DAO, Chingari & Portal
1kx: Invested early in 50 web3 companies (38% lead ratio) such as Gnosis, WalletConnect & Snapshot
Race Capital: Invested early in 26 web3 companies (54% lead ratio) such as FTX, Lightning Labs & Solend
Examples of web2 OG funds
a16z crypto: Invested across stages in 26 web3 companies (81% lead ratio) such as NEAR, dYdX & Celo
Bitkraft: Invested across stages in 17 web3 companies (60% lead ratio) such as YGG, Immutable X & Blackpool
USV: Invested across stages in 23 web3 companies (42% lead ratio) such as Coinbase, Dapper & Polygon
NFX: Invested early in 39 web3 companies (50% lead ratio) such as Ramp, Biconomy & Coinvise
Better Capital: Invested early in 23 web3 companies (31% lead ratio) such as QuestBook, Vauld & Wall
Boost VC: Invested early in 63 web3 companies (9% lead ratio) such as Coinbase, Filecoin & 0x
Examples of institutional funds
Alameda Research: Invested across stages in 178 web3 companies (31% lead ratio) such as Maple, Messari & Balancer
Republic Capital: Invested across stages in 19 web3 companies (16% lead ratio) such as Gnosis, NEAR & Polygon
Wintermute Ventures: Invested across stages in 38 web3 companies (5% lead ratio) such as dYdX, Bitpanda & Zerion
Coinbase Ventures: Invested early in 278 web3 companies (6% lead ratio) such as Compound, OpenSea & Alchemy
Solana Ventures: Invested early in 57 web3 companies (18% lead ratio) such as Phantom, STEPN & Genopets
Figment: Invested early in 20 web3 companies (undisclosed lead ratio) such as Composable Finance, Nomad & Flux
Web3 work opportunities
Ethos (wallet on Sui) is hiring an engineer
BHR (real estate protocol) is hiring a Senior Blockchain Engineer
Let’s fucking build,
--
Moon