Investors Unleash $12 Million to Crypto Founders: The Future is Now! 🚀💰

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  • In a rather grandiose announcement, Blockchain Builders has triumphantly declared the closure of a $28 million crypto and Web3 fund. One can only imagine the celebratory toasts being made over overpriced lattes in Silicon Valley! ☕️

  • This fund, dear reader, aims to support those audacious pioneers in the crypto realm, dabbling in AI, Infrastructure, DeFi, DePIN, Payments, and RWAs. Quite the buffet of buzzwords, wouldn’t you say? 🍽️

  • Over $16 million has already been flung at more than 40 blockchain projects. It seems money does grow on trees after all, at least in the land of venture capital! 🌳💸

Blockchain Builders, a venture fund with a penchant for investing in pre-seed and seed-stage blockchain founders, has proudly announced the successful closure of its $28 million Fund I. This fund, oversubscribed and dripping with ambition, primarily focuses on projects sprouting from the illustrious Stanford Web3 ecosystem. They’re not just throwing money around; they’re offering pre-seed and seed-stage capital to the crème de la crème of crypto communities, including those exceptional founders from other esteemed institutions. Because why not? 🤷‍♂️

The brainchild of three Stanford graduates—Gil Rosen, Kun Peng, and Steven Willinger—this fund aims to cultivate and expand the Stanford blockchain ecosystem. So far, Fund I has generously supported top blockchain projects, distributing over $16 million across 40 ventures in sectors that sound impressive enough to impress your friends at dinner parties. 🍷

Launched in 2017 by a trio of experienced builders and operators with a flair for early ventures, the Blockchain Builders Fund I is not just about the money. The team rolls up their sleeves, offering hands-on support to ensure that founders don’t just survive but thrive. The remaining $12 million will be doled out to pioneering crypto founders by the end of the year, or so they say. ⏳

This funding is expected to help these crypto projects successfully launch their token generation events (TGEs). Notable portfolio companies expected to benefit include the modular AI blockchain 0G (backed by Hack VC, Bankless, Delphi Digital), the supercomputer venture Nexus Labs (supported by Lightspeed, Pantera, Dragonfly), the open-access AI cloud Hyperbolic (with Variant, Polychain, Topology), and the blockless Layer-1 Pod (a16z, 1kx). Quite the lineup, isn’t it? 🎉

Building The Stanford Blockchain Ecosystem

The Blockchain Builders Fund is merely one of the many ambitious projects launched by Rosen, Peng, and Willinger to bolster the ever-growing Stanford Blockchain Ecosystem. They’ve had a hand in launching Stanford’s Blockchain Accelerator, teaching in the MS&E 447 Blockchain Entrepreneurship course, and producing the Blockchain Application Stanford Summit (BASS) conference series. Talk about multitasking! 🎓

Reflecting on their previous successes, Blockchain Builder’s Co-founder Kun Peng remarked:

“These initiatives have supported over 200 founders, 400 students, and nearly 5000 cumulative attendees, providing a deep network to inspire, support, and mentor new founders for success.” Sounds like a party, doesn’t it? 🎊

David Tse, a professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Babylon protocol, a Bitcoin staking platform, believes this funding will accelerate the growth of Stanford’s blockchain ecosystem. He further shared that the successes of the accelerator program are nurturing the founders from the university and pushing forward the future of Web3 across Stanford. Because who doesn’t want to be part of the future? 🌍

“Stanford has an extensive history of blockchain research and innovation, including the Tse Lab that I run, the Centre for Blockchain Research, and coursework like my EE 374 course on blockchain infrastructure,” Tse said. “It’s also responsible for the BASS events and MS&E 447 entrepreneurship course, while the Stanford blockchain accelerator has helped further nurture its founder ecosystem and the number of blockchain startups launching.” Quite the legacy, I must say! 📚

Experts Pushing Forward Web3 Development

Blockchain Builders boasts a team of seasoned professionals from both traditional finance and the emerging crypto economy. Willinger previously led Coinbase Ventures, invested at Capital One Ventures, and worked in product and partnerships at Blockstream and Google/Google X. Rosen, a prolific angel investor, bootstrapped a 100-employee venture, building distributed compute infrastructure for JPMorgan, London Stock Exchange, and the IRS; exiting to AI platform NGData. While Peng has extensive founder experience in web3 spanning crypto analytics and indexing, NFT, DeFi, and infrastructure. Quite the résumé, wouldn’t you agree? 🏆

Gil Rosen believes their efforts will help mold new-age and high-potential founders, working with them to grow their companies into global Web3 giants. Because who doesn’t want to be a giant? 🦸‍♂️

“We roll up our sleeves and dive into the details of strategy, go-to-market, and fundraising – positioning them optimally for competitive follow-on rounds led by tier-1 investors,” Rosen added. Sounds like a plan! 🗺️

Following the completion of Fund I, Blockchain Builders is eagerly looking forward to launching Fund II. This new funding round aims to expand its support to the new IC3-Cornell accelerator, which includes Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Yale, and UCL, while collaborating on thought-leading events with the Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Starkware, BASE (Coinbase), and more. Scaling their mission of supporting founders nationwide, one dollar at a time! 💵

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2025-05-27 18:13