Former Blocktower VCs plot new $100M fund

Let’s wind the clock back for a second: remember Blocktower’s merger with Arca? 

Let me refresh your memory. Last year, Arca announced that it was snapping up Blocktower, but there were some caveats. The venture capital side of the business, for example, was not included in the merger. 

Today we’ve got an answer to what’s next for them: The team formerly behind Blocktower Capital — Thomas Klocanas, Steven Venino, and Winnie Lau — founded a new firm called Strobe.

For Klocanas, it made sense to be more independent. And then there’s the bonus of staying small when most shops in crypto expand while things are good. Plus, their focus now is only VC and they don’t have to worry about other sides of the business. 

“Our internal determination was that what served our LPs and our strategy and our portfolio the best was thus far, having been very patient, very contrarian and largely independent, despite having been under the umbrella of another asset manager, Blocktower,” — which let the team focus on longer-term venture investing, he told me. 

The team’s in the fourth year of deployment with its $150 million first fund, which they still deploy capital out of and expect to do so for the rest of the year, according to Klocanas. 

The team is expected to “kick off a new $100 million raise” for its second fund. Klocanas told me that the timeline for that second fund is slightly in the air, though it could happen in the “coming weeks to months.”

While Klocanas was tight-lipped about the announcements we can expect to hear, he teased a couple of investments that’ll be announced shortly… just to pique your interest. When I hear more, trust me, we’ll be talking about it. 

Beyond Strobe’s debut, Klocanas and I spoke about the current environment — namely that I’ve been told it’s a bit annoying to be a founder right now with everyone so obsessed with narratives and token prices and not so focused on the fundamentals of it all. 

For Strobe, it’s about finding companies that’ll not only be around in five years (aka a millennia in crypto) but also projects that have a focus on the aforementioned fundamentals because, understandably, something like revenue is nice. 

“We take the view that it’s not sustainable to trade billions of dollars if you’re not making hundreds of millions of dollars empowering hundreds of millions of users,” he told me.

A lot of the founders they’ve backed recently have experience building up multiple projects. They have Morpho, Ethena, Ledger, TYB, Aptos and Maple Finance all under their portfolio, if you’re looking to get a sense of who they’re interested in.

Klocanas said the founders he looks for aren’t necessarily the ones posting a lot on CT, but rather they’re “deeply obsessed” with pinpointing and solving for a problem using crypto as leverage. 

Now we’ll just have to keep an eye on Klocanas, Venino and Lau’s next steps.

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