Michael Bodley

<div id="highlights-block_62212f46e2aa9" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The launch bucks the trend of generalist crypto venture capital startups</li>
 <li>The fund’s portfolio manager previously spent time at firms ConsenSys Ventures and Google</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



As cryptocurrency-focused portfolio managers look to narrow their niches in a sweep toward specialization, a ConsenSys Ventures alum is prepping a venture capital fund fund launch focused on just one protocol.



Rune Bentien told Blockworks he expects to hold a first capital close of between $10 million to $15 million for his United Kingdom-based MOVE in late March or early April. The plan is to raise about $40 million overall, pending a couple of additional closes later this year.&nbsp;



MOVE backs exclusively startups in the NEAR Protocol ecosystem, a decentralized finance blockchain that aims to harness a network of computers to create a cloud computing platform.



The NEAR token was trading at a little over $11 midday Thursday, a 165.6% increase from a year ago. Investors have been drawn to the proof-of-stake blockchain’s use of sharding, which splits the blockchain’s data into easily digestible pieces divided among the network’s nodes that validate transactions.



Bentien and other institutional investors deploying capital to NEAR projects say the blockchain is still in its early days and has a solid growth trajectory ahead.



“This is still so early,” Bentien said.”You have less than 30,000 full-time developers on Web3.”



The launch is one of a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/anon-cryptopunk-owner-launches-nft-fund-betting-on-ability-over-identity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">growing</a> <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/miami-family-office-backing-nft-fund-launch-helmed-by-fine-art-collector/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">number</a> of new vehicles keying in on a single corner of crypto  as limited partners increasingly look for specialization as a means to generate alpha.



A couple of years ago, industry participants say, crypto’s market cap was low enough that focusing on one niche wasn’t a viable way to deploy significant capital. That’s changing.



The NEAR team, Bentien said, has a “huge technical advantage” over other blockchains with its sharding technology and has been drawing the interest of institutional investors looking for the next big thing. Adding to the appeal: The cryptocurrency says it’s carbon neutral.



Bentien, who ran one of the first 50 nodes on NEAR, said the blockchain is primed for widespread adoption.



“Assuming they can stay focused in 2022, I think we have an exciting few years ahead of us,” Bentien said.



The startup plans to deploy capital “as early as possible,” Rune said, concentrating on pre-seed, seed and Series A investment rounds. He expects many of the investments to back startups developing decentralized applications on the NEAR blockchain.&nbsp;



The team is now warehousing five to 10 investments that will become part of its portfolio once the fund launches. To start, MOVE plans to put about two-thirds of its capital into equity plays, with the remaining third earmarked for token investments. That proportion is expected to flip over the next year or two.



MOVE plans to have five staffers, including some from crypto-native backgrounds, on board around its launch. They’re based in Africa, Europe and the US. Bentien declined to disclose their identities because some are still negotiating exits with current employers.



The startup also has one venture partner on board.



The team will take the helm of a fund with a five-year lockup period — a shorter duration than a good number of other venture capital funds — and plans to take limited partner contributions in the form of cryptocurrencies, including NEAR.



Fiat will not be accepted for limited partner contributions, a potential barrier to entry for traditional investors accustomed to conducting all their financial dealings in dollars — though support for commonly used stablecoins, such as USDC, could help.&nbsp;



Before working for ConsenSys, Bentien spent nearly nine years in business development roles at Google. He has also worked for a number of startups.



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Crypto

New Crypto Venture Capital Fund Investing Only in NEAR in Nod to Specialization

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_60e60df45eb7b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The DeFi community has grown substantially in the past year as a range from curious investors to new companies continue to break into the space</li>
 <li>The DeFi total market cap surged about 556% earlier this year from $21.903 billion on January 1 to an all-time high of about $143.682 billion on May 11, according to data from CoinGecko</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Decentralized finance company Zerion has raised $8.2 million in a Series A funding round and plans to make the DeFi space more mainstream, the company announced Wednesday.&nbsp;



Zerion helps users invest their DeFi portfolios on its platform, which contains content that customers can use to search, filter and evaluate the DeFi assets on the market, it said.&nbsp;



The funding round was led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Placeholder, DCG, Lightspeed, Blockchain.com Ventures.&nbsp;



Other investors who participated in this round include DeFi Alliance Fund, Continue Capital, SevenX Ventures, G1 Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Wintermute, The LAO and a <a href="https://blog.zerion.io/zerion-raises-8-2m-from-mosaic-ventures-to-take-defi-mainstream-db85b1b19c2c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">group of angel investors</a> from the crypto community.



With the new funds in place, Zerion said it’s focusing on scaling its infrastructure to meet demand, making multi-chain support easy to use and creating an investing experience fit for non-crypto natives.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/podcast-how-to-get-started-in-defi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi community</a> has grown substantially in the past year as curious investors and new companies continue to break into the space. As new products, coins and systems enter the marketplace, the market capitalization has skyrocketed from previous years.&nbsp;



In general, the DeFi total market capitalization spiked about 556% higher earlier this year from $21.903 billion on January 1 to an all-time high of about $143.682 billion on May 11, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/defi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data</a> from CoinGecko. More recently, the total market cap value for DeFi has fallen from the May peak to $78.886 billion but is still up 981.7% from the year-ago date.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QHoT4dkBxvenVcM9a_NmSBXJBp6A9Xae3CjDz_q0COo1OVL0bUUHZGdeZcNDGIz7Id75uAto3VJtdIXqVgPBpc88gTybNV9Wo4TG5VwGqq4_p3FCgjIDZyZtqvvlxtf36HrEAakV" alt=""/><figcaption>DeFi Market Capitalization graph from January 2020 to present, provided by CoinGecko data</figcaption></figure>



With that said, DeFi’s potential still remains largely untapped by mainstream audiences because the world has never seen financial interoperability at this scale and most of DeFi remains too complex to access, said Zerion CEO Evgeny Yurtaev in a blog <a href="https://blog.zerion.io/zerion-raises-8-2m-from-mosaic-ventures-to-take-defi-mainstream-db85b1b19c2c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">post</a>.&nbsp;



The company, founded in 2016, operates under the belief that anyone with a smartphone should have access to financial services. Zerion is hoping to make DeFi more accessible to all investors, regardless of their crypto knowledge or experience, Yurtaev said.&nbsp;



Zerion’s interface has over 200,000 monthly users from more than 150 countries. It has processed over $600 million transaction volumes year to date, he said.&nbsp;



“We saw early on that an internet-scale financial revolution cannot happen without internet-scale infrastructure that is permissionless, borderless, programmable and composable. DeFi is all of these things, and more,” Yurtaev said.&nbsp;



Without bankers as gatekeepers, DeFi users globally can access open lending platforms and “earn passive income on their digital assets through lending, staking and accruing yields that are virtually unheard of in a traditional savings account,” Yurtaev said.&nbsp;



In the future, the company hopes that it becomes the all-inclusive portal to the world of DeFi, the way Google provides information or Amazon provides consumers access to a plethora of goods, Yurtaev said.&nbsp;



“&#8230;DeFi is creating an entirely new alternative financial ecosystem and Zerion enables millions of users to easily and transparently interact with it,” said Toby Coppel, co-founder and partner at Mosaic Ventures.



The DeFi space is volatile and rapidly growing, but “only those who provide real value will see the upside of the market in all its forms — bear or bull. We’re in this for the long haul and token prices don’t change that,” Yurtaev said.