Blockchain Capital, one of the longest-standing venture capital firms in the crypto industry, is seeking to raise $700 million across two new investment funds, Bloomberg reported on April 22, citing a person familiar with the matter. The firm has not made a public announcement, and the source requested anonymity because the information has not been officially disclosed.
Two vehicles, two strategies
The fundraise covers two separate vehicles being raised simultaneously. The first is Blockchain Capital’s seventh early-stage fund, designed to back experimental crypto startups at the frontier of the industry.
The second is its second growth fund, which will target more mature companies that have already demonstrated traction in the market. Together, the two funds represent a dual-track approach that allows the firm to serve both ends of the investment spectrum, from zero-to-one bets on unproven technology, to growth capital for companies already generating momentum.
The source told Bloomberg the firm has already begun deploying capital from the new raise, even before the fundraising round closes. The full round is expected to wrap up within five to six months.
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A firm that helped build the industry
Founded in 2013 by brothers Bart and Brad Stephens under the original name Crypto Currency Partners, Blockchain Capital rebranded in 2015 and grew into one of the most recognizable names in crypto venture.
Its early bets now read like a history of the industry. The firm backed Coinbase in its Series C round in 2015, years before the exchange went public at a valuation near $100 billion in 2021.
It also backed Kraken in a Series A round, and made early investments in stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether, as well as NFT marketplace OpenSea. Today, the firm manages more than $2 billion in assets under management and has invested in over 100 companies and protocols.
The new raise follows the firm’s most recent pair of funds, which closed at a combined $580 million in 2021, and builds on what has been an active investment period. Earlier this month, Blockchain Capital led a $12 million funding round for Paxos Labs, the DeFi-focused spinoff from stablecoin issuer Paxos, alongside Robot Ventures, family office Maelstrom, and DeFi developer Uniswap Labs.
Adversity in the firm’s recent past
The new fundraise comes nearly three years after Blockchain Capital made headlines for less favorable reasons. In May 2023, co-founder Bart Stephens lost $6.3 million in cryptocurrency through an alleged SIM swap attack.
The hackers used personal information sourced from the internet and the dark web to impersonate his brother Brad with a cellular network provider, ordered a new phone, transferred his number to a SIM card under their control, then reset his passwords and drained his wallets of bitcoin, ether, Maker, Compound, Uniswap, and several other tokens.
An attempt to steal an additional 80 BTC and 6,500 ETH from a custodial cold wallet was thwarted when a Blockchain Capital employee received an alert about the suspicious withdrawal attempt. Stephens filed a lawsuit against the anonymous attacker in August 2023.
The firm’s Twitter account was separately compromised around the same period in an unrelated incident. The 2023 events underscored a persistent vulnerability that even the most experienced actors in the crypto space face, mobile-based social engineering attacks that bypass two-factor authentication entirely.
Where the broader VC market stands
The timing of Blockchain Capital’s raise reflects a deliberate positioning ahead of what many in the industry expect to be a more favorable fundraising environment. Crypto projects have raised approximately $466 million in April so far, a sharp pullback from $3 billion in March, according to Messari data.
Most activity has been concentrated in deals below $10 million, with large transactions like Core Scientific’s $1 billion debt financing skewing the headline numbers. Monthly crypto fundraising has cooled significantly since its peak in late 2021 and early 2022, when funding consistently exceeded $4 billion per month.
Yet institutional interest in dedicated crypto funds appears to be holding. Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z crypto, is separately targeting around $2 billion for its fifth fund and plans to close the raise by mid-2026.
Venture capital investors have pointed to improving regulatory clarity in the United States, including the passage of the GENIUS Act on stablecoin regulation, as a catalyst for renewed startup activity. For a firm of Blockchain Capital’s vintage and portfolio depth, the move to raise before that clarity fully materializes suggests confidence that the next investment cycle is worth positioning for now.
