Mike Novogratz’s crypto conglomerate Galaxy Digital is reportedly in the starting stages of raising a $100 million venture fund targeting early-stage crypto startups, with most of the cash set to come from other investors.
Its venture arm, Galaxy Ventures, typically used company money for investments but decided to open up its new Galaxy Ventures Fund I to other venture capitalists last year, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, per an April 4 report.
The minimum investment it’ll make into startups is $1 million, the person added.
The fund would allow Galaxy to “continue fueling the digital asset ecosystem by backing promising early-stage companies,” Galaxy told Bloomberg.
Galaxy Ventures’ investments in crypto startups include a $2.7 million February round it led for Citrea, a project aiming to bring zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) to Bitcoin.
Galaxy has raised and contributed to other funds. Its most recent contribution was to a $75 million fund to VC firm 1kx targeting crypto-based consumer apps.
The reported fund comes amid a resurgence of venture money returning to crypto after a flat crypto market last year.
Crypto VC funding jumped over 50% month-on-month in March to $1.16 billion split across 180 publicly announced investments — the highest monthly figure since April 2022.
Para is also reportedly attempting to raise up to $850 million for a fund. Hack VC is similarly putting together $150 million to back crypto startups and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has put aside $30 million for a Web3 gaming-focused fund.
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The venture money rush comes as the January-approved United States spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have sent the cryptocurrency’s price on a rally, gaining around 50% year-to-date.
Bitcoin has brought the rest of the crypto market with it. The total crypto market capitalization at the start of the year was around $1.7 trillion, it now stands at $2.61 trillion — edging back to its all-time high of $3 trillion, per CoinGecko.
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