By
Bhushan Akolkar
January 12th, 2024
The fund will go into early-stage digital tokens, Web3 startups, and digital tokens with established liquidity levels.
In May last year, Pantera Capital, a blockchain-focused asset manager, announced that it was seeking to raise $600 million in its Blockchain Fund. According to its latest report during an investor conference call, Pantera disclosed that it raised $1.3 billion since setting up the fund. The fund will go into early-stage digital tokens, Web3 startups, and digital tokens with established liquidity levels.
It is worth noting that spending among Web3 venture capitals is encouraging despite the crypto market struggles. NFT firm Genies reportedly gathered $150 million, with NEAR Protocol raising $350 million.
In June last year, Andreessen Horowitz raised $2.2 billion for Crypto Fund III. Also, a formal general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Kathryn Haun raised $1.5 billion for her Haun Ventures.
Pantera CEO Dan Morehead earlier reported that they are going to invest twice as much as planned in the market.
It is reported that 40% of Pantera’s Blockchain Fund will go into venture equity, 30% will go into liquid tokens, and roughly 30% will go into early-stage tokens.
Pantera partner Paul Veradittakit also disclosed that they will primarily focus on consumers, the “intersection of traditional finance and Defi”, as well as the global institutionalization of the industry.
To date, the Pantera Blockchain Fund has invested in about 44 early-stage token projects which include venture equity deals.
The investor conference call was meant for the new $200 million Select Fund that focuses on”more mature, revenue-generating companies than our typical Seed and Series A venture investments.” Select Fund is Pantera’s fifth, joining the likes of the Early Token Fund and Bitcoin Fund.
“Smaller, more targeted, and therefore more concentrated than a typical growth fund,” the company stated.
The company further disclosed that as part of its near-term plans, it will set up a second Blockchain Fund in 2023. Franklin Bi, director of portfolio development at Pantera, disclosed that this will equally focus on new deals in the early stage, private tokens, and venture capital. In all, it has bigger plans beyond the second Blockchain Fund.
“We will come back with a larger and more diversified and probably longer-investment-period growth-stage fund, say in 2024,” he said.
For now, Pantera is exploring blockchain gaming, NFT and the metaverse industry.
Veradittakit stated that the gaming industry is practical, easy to use, and simpler to understand compared to DeFi. He, therefore, predicted that the industry is going to be huge in the future.
“Where we see this market going with NFTs is not only representation of digital art, but also representation of video, music…and then of course into video game assets too,” he added.