Portal Ventures Raises $75M for Pre-Seed Crypto Fund Amid Growing VC Interest in Early-Stage Web3 Startups

Portal Ventures has successfully closed its second fund, raising $75 million to support pre-seed investments in Web3 and crypto startups. The new fund draws backing from high-profile investors, including Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon of a16z, along with funds of funds such as Accolade Partners, Theta Capital, and CrossLayer Capital.

Based in New York City, Portal Ventures is known for its unconventional approach to early-stage investments, claiming to back crypto startups even before they have a white paper or pitch deck. The firm’s portfolio includes innovative projects like Plume Network, which focuses on tokenizing real-world assets, and Arch, a crypto lending platform.

Portal Ventures will target one founder per category, with a particular focus on cutting-edge areas such as Bitcoin programmability, decentralized infrastructure (DePIN), and maximal extractable value (MEV) business models. This strategy aligns with the growing trend of venture capital increasingly focusing on early-stage funding in the crypto space, particularly in 2024.

Rising Interest in Early-Stage Crypto Funds

Portal Ventures is entering a competitive venture capital landscape, as several other firms have recently announced new funds targeting blockchain-based startups. In April, Paradigm, one of the industry’s leading crypto investors, launched efforts to raise $850 million for its latest fund — its largest since the $2.5 billion fund it raised in 2021. Paradigm’s portfolio includes some of the biggest names in crypto, including Coinbase, Uniswap, and Optimism.

Other firms, such as Dragonfly Capital and Pantera Capital, have also ramped up fundraising. Pantera, for instance, is looking to raise $1 billion for a fund focusing on a broad spectrum of blockchain assets, while Dragonfly revealed plans in September to raise $500 million for its fourth crypto fund, concentrating on early-stage opportunities.

Despite a 20% decline in total investment from the previous quarter, with $2.4 billion raised across 478 deals in Q3 2024, early-stage funding has remained resilient. According to Galaxy Research, angel, pre-seed, and seed rounds represented a significant 85% of all capital deployed in crypto startups during the quarter.

As of 2024, venture capital investment in crypto startups has already reached $8 billion, keeping the industry on track to match or slightly exceed the total investment levels seen in 2023, driven largely by robust early-stage activity. This ongoing interest in pre-seed funding underscores the strong belief among investors in the future of blockchain and Web3 technologies.