Northzone however doesn’t currently have exposure to NFTs, something that Schadeck said could change in the near future.
London-based venture capital firm Northzone has announced that it has launched a €1 billion fund with a focus on investing in crypto and fintech startups.
Wendy Xiao Schadeck, a partner at Northzone, who authored its crypto investment thesis back in July 2018, speaking after the announcement, described web3 as a “core sector” for the firm.
”Web3 and web2 two will likely start to converge in this fund cycle’s lifetime,” she said in an interview with The Block. “For instance, some of the web2 fintech companies in our last fund have launched tokens and some of our gaming companies have decided to base their follow-on rounds from web3 VCs so it’s really hard to say exactly where the delineation will be,” she stated.
According to Xiao Schadeck, the venture capital firm has the infrastructure in place to support entrepreneurs through equity investments as well as token sales and has previously taken part in token staking.
In addition, she implied that under the right circumstances, the company would be willing to invest in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
Northzone however doesn’t currently have exposure to NFTs, something that Schadeck said could change in the near future.
Schadeck explained that the firm is considering new modes of investing that are aligned to its objectives.
”But it’s not at a point where we say we’ll dedicate a portion of the funding to buy NFTs or anything like that. So far, we haven’t found that specifically, NFTs themselves are an investment case that fits our venture criteria,” she added.
Shadeck also revealed that despite some of the roadblocks DeFi has met, she isn’t discouraged by them and even cited the depegging of Terra’s UST in May which had a negative impact on portfolio business Gro, prompting it to review its approach to producing yield for clients.
However, according to Xiao Shadeck, Northzone will keep an eye on the web3 infrastructure market and DeFi protocols like Gro.
Northzone was founded in 1996 as a generalist investor and has backed a variety of tech companies, from fintech firms like open banking specialist TrueLayer and buy now pay later giant Klarna, to music streaming platform Spotify, which is said to be exploring web3.
The company however also lists DeFi protocol Gro, web3 privacy company Sunscreen, and startup crypto infrastructure Magic Labs among its portfolio companies.
Shadeck also told reporters that it is still unclear whether Northzone would form a specific cryptocurrency fund like other European venture capital firms like Aglaé Ventures and Cherry Ventures.
“We would discuss and evaluate with our LPs to see if the time is right for that,” she said, noting that such a move would allow the firm to participate in trading liquid tokens,” she stated.