Variant launches two new venture funds with $450 million to invest in Web3

Crypto venture investment firm Variant has raised $450 million across two new funds targeting the Web3 and decentralized finance market, which include $300 million for a so-called opportunity fund and $150 million to invest in nascent startups.

According to Thursday’s announcement, the company raised $300 million for a so-called opportunity fund as well as a $150 million fund to invest in earlier-stage startup projects. Led by general partners Li Jin, Jesse Walden, and Spencer Noon, Variant closed its first fund in 2020 and recently announced a $110 million fund, following a merger with Atelier Ventures in 2021.

Variant’s portfolio includes a large variety of companies in the crypto space, such as NFT platform Magic Eden, decentralized credit platform Goldfinch, and decentralized exchange Uniswap.

Per the firm’s press materials, the new funds will look at four specific fields of investment opportunities, such as decentralized finance, blockchain infrastructure, consumer applications in Web3, and projects experimenting with new forms of ownership.

“Tokens and NFTs enable net-new user experiences that satisfy diverse motivations and ‘jobs-to-be done,’ from control to belonging, to financial alignment with the products you use everyday,” the firm stated. “Ownership is a design space for new product features and experiences.”

The launch of two new funds appears amidst turmoil in the crypto market, with volumes across various platforms declining, users retreating, and prices broadly sinking. Still, Variant isn’t alone among investors in forging ahead with fresh fundraising. This summer, crypto veterans Jason Choi and Darryl Wang launched a new fund targeting Web3. Also, Huobi’s former executive David Gan launched his next venture fund in June.

Meanwhile, Variant remains bullish on the long-term future of Web3. As Walden said, the technology powering the emerging Web3 industry will only improve from here.

“In the history of technology, technology doesn’t get worse and disappear – it gets better and more pervasive,” he added. “And that’s happening at an exponential rate in Web3, because this is all software, it’s all open source, and there’s just tons of talent jumping in… So the tech is working, and again, I think that means it’s only going to be more pervasive.”

According to The Block Research, venture funding in the blockchain sector declined roughly 22% in Q2 2022, from $12.5 billion in Q1 to $9.8 billion.