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Founder’s Note: Why We Launched Bankless Ventures

Bankless

2023-04-29 10:53

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Original title: "Why We're Launching Bankless Ventures"

Original author: David Hoffman

Original translation: 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 tweeted an article disclosing the latest ideas and strategies. The fund currently has about 75% of investment commitments, and LPs include a16z founding partner Marc Andreessen, a16z Crypto founder Chris Dixon, Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal and NGC, etc. Its goal is to close financing by the end of May.

David detailed his original intention and goals for establishing Bankless Ventures, here is the full text:

Since its inception, Ryan and I have been building Bankless with a lofty, singular ambition: to enable 1 billion people to use cryptocurrency.

With the help of a thriving community, Bankless has grown from a struggling passion project to a paper-driven media company, providing podcasts and articles to educate the industry on the core idea of "Why Crypto is Good for Humanity".

Of course, cryptocurrency is an industry about money and finance, which gives Ryan and I the opportunity to bet on the vision of the future as we explore this space. Now, we hope to advance these ambitions by launching an early-stage venture fund called Bankless Ventures.

Raising a Fund

Ryan and I spoke briefly about this effort after last month’s Coindesk article “Bankless Podcast Hosts Raising $35M Crypto Venture Fund” and we’ve been quietly building since then, but now we’re ready to share more about the fund, team, vision, and how we’re uniquely positioned in the broad crypto venture capital space.

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

We are fortunate that the growing Bankless network gives us access to a large number of deals, far more than two people could handle.

Building the Team

In mid-2021, I approached Ryan with the prospect of starting a dedicated venture fund, with the idea being that between our angel investing and advisory work, we were already halfway down the path to running a venture fund, so why not go all the way?

We ultimately decided to focus entirely on expanding Bankless Nation through Bankless Media at the end of the bull market, while simultaneously launching the fund to meet the upcoming bear market opportunities.

To build Bankless Ventures, we needed some help.

This is Ben Lakoff.

Ben and I have a history almost as deep as Ryan and I do. Throughout the bull market, we always found each other at the same conferences, and we quickly became close friends.

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

In between breaths of thin air, we discussed our experiences working in 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 Venture went from an idea on a roadmap to a bona fide venture capital firm currently closing its first round.

Advisors

Joining us as advisors are two names that will be very familiar to Bankless podcast listeners: Justin Drake and Anthony Sassano.

Justin brings his experience as the world’s leading explorer of the frontiers of the cryptoeconomy; and our media brother Anthony is probably the only person who produces more content on Ethereum and its value than Ryan or myself.

Pioneering the Frontier

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

In the process of scaling Bankless Media from a simple passion project to a well-oiled team of 20, we’ve come to realize the efficiencies that come from working with smart, dedicated people. We want to give the same treatment to the investing and advisory work we’re doing so that we can make the most of the opportunities we have to support crypto pioneers and grow the crypto frontier.

Bankless Media has committed to fulfilling this vision, educating crypto natives and crypto-interested people to become citizens of Bankless Nation.

BVC wants to double down on giving pioneers the investment they need to grow the frontier themselves. We focus on early stage opportunities because we want to do everything we can to ensure the right ideas get off the ground.

Bankless Media teaches you how to explore the frontier. Bankless Ventures gives you the capital you need to build a settlement.

The time intervals when humans can meaningfully direct the future of this industry are small, and we want Bankless Ventures to be a force that ensures the right people have the resources to push crypto to be the best possible for humanity.

The Media/VC Divide

Bankless Ventures will not be a typical VC firm. Most companies try to build successful media businesses after raising their first round of funding.

However, we have built one. This advantage gives us a platform to continue sharing our vision for the future of crypto as we always have, while using Bankless Ventures to help fund companies pursuing the same vision. One of the strengths that makes our media network so successful in a sea of competition is our ability to tell stories.

This is a skill Ryan and I have honed over the years as podcasters and writers, and personally, it’s what excites me most about starting Bankless Ventures. There are so many stories out there that deserve to be told!

That said, we want Bankless Nation to continue to trust us with how we curate the projects we talk about, the interviews we choose to do, and the insights we share in our podcasts and newsletters, and that hasn’t changed.

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

We will continue to interview founders who are creating projects that fit our vision for the future, but Bankless Media is a sacred place.

It has only gotten this far because Ryan and I didn’t cut corners and we focused on building trust with our listeners and readers.

We don’t do paid interviews, we don’t do paid newsletters. Companies that want to reach our audience can purchase advertising spots, which are always clearly marked.

Bankless Ventures portfolio companies will not receive special access to Bankless Media, nor special sponsorship deals, they will receive the same pricing as anyone else.

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

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

Any suggestions on how we can better disclose?

We are listening, we want to get 1 billion people into crypto, that is our mission and the theme of Bankless Media and Bankless Ventures.

We are very excited about the opportunities ahead, and we are considering how to achieve them.

Sharing Bankless’ message is more than a “job” to us, it is what we stand for.

What’s next?

Bankless Ventures is approximately 75% committed capital and we are targeting a close by the end of May. We have already started the process for the warehousing transaction and will begin fully deploying the capital immediately following the close.

If you want to invest in the Bankless Ventures fund, you can submit an interest form as an LP. (Sorry, only accredited investors, the SEC makes us do this.)

LP Interest Form