The flood of dollars earmarked for cryptocurrency startups just got significantly bigger.
Dragonfly Capital Partners, a venture firm focused on such investments, announced Wednesday it's raised $650 million for its third fund. The new pool of capital is the largest ever for the San Francisco firm.
"We've grown, and with this newest fund we'll be backing the most disruptive founders, protocol builders, and hackers of this generation," Haseeb Qureshi, a managing partner at Dragonfly, said in a Medium post. "We used to talk about how the revolution was coming. Well, it's here now."
Founded in 2018, Dragonfly has invested in dozens of blockchain and cryptocurrency startups and protocols, including San Francisco-based Compound Labs Inc. and Near Inc. and Santa Cruz-based Maker Ecosystem Growth Holdings Inc.
In its early days, the blockchain industry faced a lot of uncertainty, particularly around whether the technology would scale, Qureshi said. Having answered that question affirmatively, the industry offers plenty of opportunities ahead, he said.
"With the right team and enough ingenuity, a crazy idea can change everything," Qureshi said in the Medium post. "The landscape is not fixed, no matter how much it seems like it might be."
Dragonfly is only the latest venture outfit to raise a big new cryptocurrency-focused fund. Haun Ventures, founded by former Andreessen Horowitz investor Katie Haun, raised $1.5 billion in March to invest in the space. Andreessen Horowitz itself is aiming to raise $4.5 billion for cryptocurrency investments. And Sequoia Capital announced in February it's launching a $500 million to $600 million cryptocurrency-focused fund.
