There was no bear market for the Standard Crypto Venture Fund which over the past year has raised $203 million, doubling their total holdings to $418 million.
The Silicon Valley based venture capital fund claims to have “elite company-building experience” and a “decade-long track record in crypto.”
“The dips of crypto’s market cycles are painful, but, ultimately, healthy,” Adam Goldberg, the founder of the fund, says. “Conviction matters. To succeed in crypto you often have to break glass.”
Succeeding during a bear might take a bit more than just breaking glass, with this little known VC being one of very few to see an increase in funding last year while the tech sector overall saw a near 50% dip.
“Today Standard Crypto has grown to a dozen people, and we plan to continue adding to the team,” Goldberg says. “We’re building ourselves.”
Their portfolio includes Binance, OpenSea, BAYC, as well as things like Telegram, in addition to Maker, Aave and Polygon as well as what once was the most innovative new offering, Zcash.
“Up to this point, we’ve been fairly quiet, keeping our heads down and partnering with some of the most visionary founders and communities in all of crypto,” Goldberg says.
Now, they’re quiet no more even though this is a fairly new fund, launched in 2019, by self-proclaimed OGs.
The launch of two funds by Ark, however, was a lot more noisy with even Bloomberg covering it despite the sums amounting to just $16 million.
The newly launched ARK Crypto Revolutions U.S. Fund raised $7.29 million from 9 investors, while the ARK Crypto Revolutions Cayman Fund raised almost $9 million from just one investor.
Who that investor is remains unclear, but Cathie Wood herself not only has not been deterred by the bear, is instead turning into a true believer.
“Instability in the banking system threatened stablecoins, the on-ramps to DeFi, in stark contrast to regulator rhetoric,” Wood said.
That’s just one more sign of a turning tables with markets a bit “quiet” today and to the upside as Nasdaq rises nearly 2%, but the chaos we have recently seen in traditional finance contrasts to the months of calm crypto has experienced.
Investors may therefore start paying a bit more attention again, and the return of these fundraisings might be just a sign of that.
