Robot Ventures raises $75m for early-stage crypto fund

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 fourth fund raised by the US-based crypto VC firm, Bloomberg reported on August 30.

Robot Ventures, whose portfolio includes Lido Finance (LDO), Optimism (OP), and LayerZero (ZRO), has attracted industry heavyweights for the fund, including TrueBridge Capital Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter of which is among the top investors in crypto projects.

Larger fund than before

The $75 million fund is nearly three times larger than Robot Ventures’ previous rounds. The latest raise from $22 million comes amid growing interest in crypto from institutional investors, according to Tarun Chitra, a general partner at the VC platform.

But while notable, the firm’s raise is lower than the $150 million funding raised by Hack VC in February and the $850 million funding announced by crypto venture capital giant Paradigm in June. On August 28, crypto VC firm Lemniscap announced a $70 million fund for web3 ventures.

The overall picture is that the crypto VC landscape has seen a decent uptick in interest following a major decline following the bear market of 2022. The sector saw a total of $2.7 billion in venture capital deals in the second quarter of 2024, Crypto.news reported.

Which crypto sectors are seeing major interest from VCs?

Some recent venture capital increases in the cryptocurrency market have heralded a new perspective.

Key sectors include real-world asset projects, zero-knowledge proofs, decentralized physical infrastructure networks, and artificial intelligence. Decentralized finance markets, capital markets, and the Bitcoin economy ecosystem are also noteworthy sectors.

In one of its latest investments, Robot Ventures backed a $4 million round for zkMe, a project that aims to build a zero-knowledge credential layer for web3. Multicoin Capital led the strategic funding round, which OKX Ventures also participated in.