Breaking: Dragonfly Capital Launches Its Biggest Crypto Fund At $650 Mln

Crypto venture capitalist Dragonfly Capital said on Wednesday it will launch its biggest fund yet, with a valuation of $650 million. The fund is its third such venture, and is called Dragonfly Fund III.

The fund is more than twice the value of the firm’s previous two firms, which came up to a combined $300 million. It also mirrors similar moves from other crypto VCs such as Bain Capital and Sequoia Capital, which had both launched funds of nearly $600 million in value.

Dragonfly, which is helmed by former professional poker player Haseeb Qureshi, has backed several crypto mainstays, including Avalanche, Bybit, Amber, Dune Analytics and Frax.

Dragonfly sees crypto heating up

The new fund was revealed in a blog post by Qureshi, who sees a big jump in crypto and blockchain adoption over the next five years.

The L1 wars are heating up, the race to build the metaverse is on, DeFi is maturing, crypto gaming now seems inevitable, and the financial infrastructure is institutionalizing.

With the new fund, Dragonfly will also lead late-stage funding rounds, Qureshi said.

Qureshi’s comments mirror those from other major crypto venture capitalists, who have bet large amounts of money on a crypto explosion in the coming years. The space has seen a boom in popularity this year, given that crypto donations played a prolific role in the Russia-Ukraine war.

This has attracted more institutional interest, and has also seen several governments pass crypto regulations.

Crypto VC spending heats up

Dragonfly’s latest fund also highlights the increasing amount of venture capital funding that has entered crypto over the past two years. A report from the Wall Street Journal shows blockchain and crypto startups raised $9.2 billion in the first quarter of 2022.

This comes after an estimated $30 billion was spent by venture capitalists on crypto through 2021, an 800% jump from 2020.