Castle Island Ventures Raises Second $50 Million Fund

Boston-based Castle Island Ventures announced a $50 million close of its second fund, according to a blog post from partner Matt Walsh. The venture fund, managed by founding partners Matt Walsh and Nic Carter, is focused exclusively on public blockchains.  Castle […]

article-image

Source: Blockworks exclusive art by Axel Rangel

share
  • The fund will continue its focus on public blockchains
  • Castle Island’s first fund was raised in 2018 for $30 million

Boston-based Castle Island Ventures announced a $50 million close of its second fund, according to a blog post from partner Matt Walsh.

The venture fund, managed by founding partners Matt Walsh and Nic Carter, is focused exclusively on public blockchains.  Castle Island’s first fund closed for $30 million back in August of 2018.  

“We believe that public blockchains are a transformative technology and will change the way that we interact with money, value transfer, trusted third parties, and even the fundamental architecture of the internet itself,” Matt wrote in a blog post.

“We believe that we are in the early innings of a monetary transition towards a rules-based monetary order that has been in the making for decades. Startups are well poised to create generationally important businesses at the infrastructure layer of this shift.”

The concept of digital property rights are central to the fund’s investment thesis.  Castle Island sees the emergence of “Web3” as a novel, internet-native ownership structure that will lead to the creation of new business models with huge addressable markets.

The firm’s portfolio includes a number of “picks and shovels” infrastructure businesses, including BlockFi, ErisX, River Financial, Talos, and Casa.

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (11).png

Research

Union’s technical design brings measured improvements to crosschain interoperability. By combining a consensus-verified hub with novel constructs like state lenses and ZK proofs for client updates, Union achieves an interoperability protocol that is highly performant, trust-minimized, and scalable.

article-image

Singapore’s largest bank is issuing crypto-linked structured notes on Ethereum, but the tokens will remain permissioned

article-image

Jupiter borrows Fluid’s innovative risk engine

article-image

Exchange says all validators now run in distributed clusters, boosting decentralization and fault tolerance

article-image

Retail FOMO is back, with CEX onboarding and search terms up

article-image

The stablecoin payments processor previously raised from the likes of a16z Crypto and Archetype