Robot Ventures, an early-stage venture capital investor focused on projects in the cryptocurrency space, has raised $75 million for a new crypto fund.
The fund is the U.S.-based crypto VC firm’s fourth fund, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 30.
Robot Ventures, whose portfolio include Lido Finance (LDO), Optimism (OP) and LayerZero (ZRO), attracted industry heavyweights for the fund. These include TrueBridge Capital Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter being among the top investors in crypto projects.
Fund bigger than previous ones
The $75 million fund is nearly three times bigger compared to Robot Ventures’ previous funds. According to the VC platform’s general partner Tarun Chitra, the jump from $22 million to the latest raise comes amid growing interest in crypto from institutional investors.
But while notable, the firm’s raise is lower than the $150 million fund Hack VC raised in February and the $850 million that crypto venture capital giant Paradigm announced in June. On Aug. 28, crypto VC firm Lemniscap announced a $70 million fund for web3 startups.
The overall picture is that the crypto VC landscape has seen a decent spike in interest following a huge drop after the 2022 bear market. As crypto.news reported, the sector saw a total of $2.7 billion in venture capital deals in the second quarter of 2024.
What crypto sectors are seeing huge VC interest?
Some recent venture capital raises across the crypto market have suggested a fresh outlook.
Key sectors include real-world assets projects, zero-knowledge proofs, decentralized physical infrastructure networks, and artificial intelligence. The decentralized finance market, capital markets, and Bitcoin economy ecosystem are also notable sectors.
In one of its latest investments, Robot Ventures backed the $4 million round for zkMe, a project looking to build a zero-knowledge credential layer for web3. Multicoin Capital led the strategic funding round, with OKX Ventures also participating.
