Author: David Hoffman

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

In early March, Bankless podcast hosts David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams planned to raise $35 million for their venture capital fund, Bankless Ventures, to invest in seed-stage Web3 companies.

On April 28, David Hoffman published a Twitter article revealing his latest thoughts and strategies. The fund currently has about 75% of committed investments, with LPs including a16z founding partner Marc Andreessen, a16z Crypto founder Chris Dixon, Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, and NGC, among others. The goal is to close the fundraising by the end of May.

David detailed his original intention and goals for establishing Bankless Ventures, as follows:

Since its inception, Ryan and I have been building Bankless with a noble, singular ambition: to get 1 billion people using cryptocurrency.

With the help of a thriving community, Bankless has grown from a struggling passion project into a research-driven media company that provides podcasts and articles promoting the core idea of "why crypto is good for humanity."

Of course, cryptocurrency is an industry about money and finance, which has given Ryan and me the opportunity to bet on a vision for the future while exploring this space. Now, we hope to elevate these ambitions by launching an early-stage venture fund called Bankless Ventures!

Fundraising

After Coindesk published the article "Hosts of Bankless Podcast are Raising $35 Million Crypto Venture Fund" last month, Ryan and I briefly discussed this work. Since then, we have been quietly building, but now we are ready to share more about the fund, the team, the vision, and how we are uniquely positioned in the broad field of cryptocurrency venture capital.

The relationships we built through the podcast have helped us connect with more and more pioneers who share a common vision for the ultimate potential of cryptocurrency. Through our angel investments, Ryan and I have already helped fund some small teams that have ultimately grown into pillars of the cryptocurrency industry.

We are fortunate that the ever-growing Bankless network allows us to access a large number of deals, far exceeding what two people can handle.

Building the Team

In mid-2021, I proposed the prospect of establishing a dedicated venture fund to Ryan. My thought was that between angel investing and consulting work, we were already halfway down the road to operating a venture fund, so why not go all the way?

We ultimately decided to fully focus on expanding Bankless Nation through Bankless Media while starting the fund's work to seize the upcoming bear market opportunities at the end of the bull market.

To build Bankless Ventures, we needed some help.

Enter Ben Lakoff.

Ben's connection with me runs as deep as that with Ryan. Throughout the bull market, we always found each other at the same conferences, and we quickly became close friends.

At the end of the thrilling and exhausting DevCon conference in Bogotá, Ben and I decided to hike Monserrate that week, a climb that took us to an altitude of 10,300 feet.

In the gaps of breathing the thin air, we discussed our experiences working and investing in startups. We immediately realized that Ben was the missing piece of the Bankless Ventures puzzle. With Ben as our third general partner, Bankless Ventures transformed from an idea on a roadmap into a real venture capital firm that is currently completing its first fundraising.

Advisors

Joining us as advisors are two familiar figures to Bankless podcast listeners: Justin Drake and Anthony Sassano.

Justin brings his experience as a world-leading explorer of crypto economics; while our media brother Anthony may be the only one who has produced more content about Ethereum and its value than Ryan or myself.

Pioneering the Frontier

So far, this is a story about how Bankless Ventures (BVC) was born, but the deeper question is: why are we doing this?

In the process of expanding Bankless Media from a simple passion project to a well-functioning team of 20, we gradually realized the efficiency that comes from working with smart, dedicated people. We want to treat our investment and consulting work with the same respect so that we can fully leverage the opportunities we have to support pioneers in cryptocurrency and advance the crypto frontier.

Bankless Media has been committed to realizing this vision, educating crypto natives and those interested in crypto, and making them citizens of Bankless Nation.

BVC aims to double down on providing pioneers with the investments they need to develop their own frontiers. We focus on early-stage opportunities because we want to do everything we can to ensure the right ideas come to fruition.

Bankless Media teaches you how to explore the frontier. Bankless Ventures provides you with the funding needed to establish settlements.

The window for humanity to meaningfully guide the future of this industry is small, and we hope Bankless Ventures will be a force to ensure the right people have the resources to drive crypto technology to be humanity's best choice.

The Divide Between Media and Venture Capital

Bankless Ventures will not be a typical venture capital firm. Most firms try to build a successful media business after raising their first batch of funds.

However, we have already built one. This advantage provides us with a platform to continue sharing our views on the future of cryptocurrency as usual while using Bankless Ventures to help fund companies that share the same vision. One of the advantages that has made our media network so successful in a competitive ocean is our ability to tell stories.

This is a skill that Ryan and I have honed over the years as podcasters and writers, and personally, it is what excites me most about founding Bankless Ventures. There are so many stories worth telling!

That said, we hope Bankless Nation continues to trust us in how we curate the projects we discuss, the interviews we choose to conduct, and the insights we share in our podcasts and newsletters; that has not changed.

Although Ryan and I have made dozens of angel investments over the years, we have never viewed Bankless Media as a place to attract attention to our portfolio, and we have never been interested in that, as our audience is too familiar with those shenanigans.

We will continue to interview founders of projects that align with our vision for the future, but Bankless Media is a sacred space.

It has come this far because Ryan and I have not taken shortcuts; we have focused on building trust with our audience and readers.

We do not conduct paid interviews, and we do not do paid newsletters. Companies that want to reach our audience can purchase advertising space, which is always clearly marked.

Portfolio companies of Bankless Ventures will not gain special access to Bankless Media or special sponsorship agreements; they will receive the same rates as anyone else.

Balancing our roles in Bankless Media and Bankless Ventures may not always be straightforward for us, but we are committed to doing the right thing for our readers and listeners.

We take our disclosures very seriously, and we always have. Ethics in cryptocurrency is a serious matter, and we intend to lead the industry.

Do you have suggestions on how we can better disclose?

We are listening, and we want to onboard 1 billion people into cryptocurrency; that is our mission and the theme of both Bankless Media and Bankless Ventures.

We are very excited about future opportunities, and we are considering how to realize those opportunities.

Sharing the message of Bankless is not just a "job" for us; it is our stance.

What’s Next?

Bankless Ventures has about 75% of committed capital, and our goal is to close by the end of May. We have already begun the process of warehousing deals and will immediately start deploying funds after the deals close.

If you are interested in investing in the Bankless Ventures fund, you can submit a letter of intent as an LP. (Sorry, accredited investors only; the SEC requires us to do this.)

LP Letter of Intent