Multicoin Raises $100M for New Crypto Venture Fund

Multicoin Capital’s Tushar Jain flashes big-baller crypto startups with his “Shut up and take my money!” poster when their pitch lands like no other. The early-stage backer just secured funding for another $100 million in Multicoin bets.

The Austin, Texas-based crypto investment firm went public Tuesday with its second fund in four years. Backed by undisclosed institutional liquidity providers (LP) and a smattering of crypto founders, the fund is already “active,” said Jain.

Multicoin is looking to turn that activity into Helium-sized wins. Multicoin’s first fund went long and large on the internet-of-things startup in 2019, and in the past 12 months reaped the token’s 6,800%+ return. It’s one of the “weird and different” projects Jain seeks out.

News of Multicoin's new fund comes on the heels of a reported $1 billion crypto venture fund from VC giant Andreessen Horowitz. With leading coins near or above all-time highs and Coinbase surging on the Nasdaq, the timing is right for new capital to hit the market.

Multicoin prefers “making investments that are in categories that people are not taking seriously yet, or don't realize,” Jain said.

Read more: Binance Invests in Multicoin Capital Crypto Fund

For the next few years, Multicoin’s 11-person team will look to fund the crypto companies others might miss. The VC also elevated the investment team’s Matt Shapiro, Mable Jiang and communications director John Robert Reed to partner.

A blog post said Venture II bets can be as small as $500,000 or stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars if Multicoin’s hedge fund gets involved. There’s a preference for early-stage companies as well as those with tokens.

Jain said he wants to back blockchain startups building “sovereign software” for a broad user base. He described blockchain projects’ decentralized mission as inherently copacetic to the do-gooder ideals of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investing.

“I think blockchain is like the best social good in the world,” he said.