Variant, a crypto venture firm, announced Thursday the launch of two venture funds. It raised $300 million to fund a “opportunity fund” and $150 million to invest in newer startup projects.
Variant, a crypto venture investment company, has raised $450m across two new funds that target the struggling market for Web3 or decentralized finance.
The company announced that it had raised $300 million to fund a fund called Opportunity Fund and a fund of $150 million to invest in early-stage startups. Variant was led by its general partners Li Jin and Jesse Walden, and Spencer Noon announced a $110m fund after a merger with Atelier Ventures.
Variant’s portfolio contains a variety of crypto companies, including NFT platforms such as Magic Eden, Goldfinch and Uniswap, as well decentralized credit platform Goldfinch.
Variant will be launching two new funds with a mandate that is broad enough to reflect its investing history. The firm noted in press materials that the fund will focus on four buckets of investment opportunities, including decentralized finance and blockchain infrastructure. It will also look at consumer applications in Web3 and new forms of ownership.
The firm explained that tokens and NFTs allow for net-new user experiences. These can satisfy diverse motivations. Ownership allows for the creation of new features and experiences through product design.
Two new funds were launched amid a bleak backdrop for crypto market. Users have been retreating, volumes have fallen, and prices have dropped. Variant isn’t the only investor who is pursuing fresh fundraising. Jason Choi and Darryl Wang launched this summer a new fund that targets web3. David Gan, an ex-executive at Huobi, launched the latest venture fund. It was launched in June.
Variant remains optimistic about the long-term prospects of web3. Walden believes that the technology behind the web3 industry is only going to improve.
He said, “In the history technology, technology doesn’t get worse or disappear — it gets better & more pervasive.” “And this is happening at an exponential pace in web3, because it’s all software, open source and there are tons of talent jumping in… The tech is working and I believe that it will only get more widespread.
According to The Block Research, venture funding for the blockchain sector fell 22% between the first quarter and the second quarter, dropping from $12.5 billion to $9.8 million.
