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 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.