In a blog post on Tuesday, Dan Morehead, the former head of macro trading at Tiger Global and founder and chief executive of Pantera Capital, announced it was raising $200 million for a dedicated crypto growth fund, Pantera Select Fund. Pantera is also expected to close its $1.3 billion Blockchain Fund next month, more than double the target of $600 million.
Pantera Capital has closed about 10 deals in India, including one with crypto unicorn CoinDCX, Paul Veradittakit, partner at Pantera Capital, told ET. “We plan on doing a lot more (investments) in India,” he said, adding that the region had good developer talent, and that “macro factors bode well for crypto adoption”.
Pantera Capital recently led a $135-million funding round in crypto unicorn CoinDCX from its Blockchain Fund. The fund’s portfolio spans multiple crypto unicorns and decacorns (private companies valued at $1 billion and $10 billion, respectively), including Alchemy, Coinbase, Circle, and FTX.
The Select Fund will focus on mature, revenue-generating companies and cut $20 million checks on average. It is expected to close in May, Morehead wrote and plans to invest in seven to nine companies, including another round in CoinDCX.
“Institutional investors are in an uncomfortable moment. A few years ago, it would have been a massive career risk to propose investing in blockchain. A few years from now, it will be a huge fiduciary risk to not be invested. We’re in that uncomfortable interregnum period,” he wrote.
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He added that the industry has matured and seen an increase of mid and growth-stage deals from when they started investing in digital assets in 2014.
“When we began investing, seed and Series A rounds were the only deals that existed. No company was old enough yet to raise a Series B. However, the industry has grown up [and] 27% of the deals now are past Series A,” Morehead wrote. “We’re launching a new fund which will be entirely growth-stage investments. Pantera Select Fund seeks to capitalise on the industry’s transition to more growth-stage opportunities,” he added.
ET reported last July that International funds were scooping up early winners in the Indian ecosystem and reaping the benefits from blockchain startups founded by Indians.
