Leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Galaxy Digital, and Accolade Partners are among the top contributors to crypto venture capital (VC) firm 1kx’s latest fund. 1kx co-founder Lasse Clausen stated on March 28th to Bloomberg that Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, is one of the limited partners in 1kx, which has raised $75 million.
Investor Surge in the Crypto Sector
1kx’s new fund aims at crypto-based consumer applications. Clausen mentioned that the new fund has already made about five investments without disclosing the companies’ names. Clausen founded 1kx in 2018 together with Christopher Heymann. The announcement of the new fund comes at a time when institutional interest in crypto is increasing, supported by the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States.
According to a report by PitchBook, venture capital financing in crypto ventures increased by 2.5% to $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter. This marks the first increase in VC investments since March 2022.
VC investments in February also indicate renewed corporate trust in the blockchain space following recent funding announcements from various crypto ventures including Lava Protocol, Analog, Helika, Truflation, and Omega. More importantly, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced a $100 million funding round for EigenLayer, Ethereum‘s largest restructuring protocol by locked total value.
What’s Happening in the Web3 Space?
Avail, closed a $27 million seed funding round at the end of February, led by Founder Fund and Dragonfly. The funds aim to enhance Web3 data availability and consensus layers to accelerate the Web3 merger.
In the broader crypto space, blockchain game publisher Immutable, in partnership with venture capital firm King River Capital and Polygon Labs, launched a $100 million fund to invest in blockchain games. The new fund, called Inevitable Games Fund or IGF for short, raised $30 million in its first close.
IGF kicked off with investments in seven blockchain games exclusive to ImmutableX or Polygon, including Pixelmon reminiscent of Pokemon, role-playing game Guild of Guardians, and shooter games Metalcore and My Pet Hooligan.
