Founder's Statement: Why Are We Launching Bankless Ventures?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Founder's Statement: Why Are We Launching Bankless Ventures?
In early March, the host of the Bankless podcast planned to raise $35 million for its venture fund, Bankless Ventures, to invest in seed-stage Web3 companies.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: David Hoffman
Translation: TechFlow
In early March, Bankless podcast hosts David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams announced plans to raise $35 million for their venture fund, Bankless Ventures, to invest in seed-stage Web3 companies.
On April 28, David Hoffman published a Twitter thread revealing updated thoughts and strategy. The fund currently has approximately 75% of its capital committed, with limited partners (LPs) including a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen, a16z Crypto founder Chris Dixon, Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, and NGC, among others. The goal is to close fundraising by the end of May.
David elaborated on his original vision and goals for launching Bankless Ventures—here is the full text:
Since its inception, Ryan and I have built Bankless around one lofty, singular ambition: onboard one billion people into crypto.
With the help of a thriving community, Bankless has evolved from a scrappy passion project into a thesis-driven media company producing podcasts and articles that advocate the core idea of “why crypto is good for humanity.”
Of course, crypto is an industry about money and finance, which has given Ryan and me the opportunity to back our vision for the future as we explore this space. Now, we want to amplify these ambitions by launching an early-stage venture fund called Bankless Ventures.
Raising the Fund
After CoinDesk published an article last month titled “Bankless Podcast Hosts Are Raising a $35 Million Crypto Venture Fund,” Ryan and I briefly discussed the effort. Since then, we’ve been quietly building—but now we’re ready to share more about the fund, team, vision, and how we’re uniquely positioned within the broader landscape of crypto venture investing.
The relationships we’ve built through our podcast have helped us connect with an ever-growing number of pioneers who share our vision for crypto’s ultimate potential. Through our angel investments, Ryan and I have already helped fund small teams that later became pillars of the crypto industry.
We’re fortunate that the expanding Bankless network gives us access to a massive volume of deal flow—far more than two individuals can possibly handle.
Building the Team
In mid-2021, I floated the idea to Ryan about launching a dedicated venture fund. My thinking was simple: between angel investing and advisory work, we were already halfway down the path of running a venture fund—why not go all the way?
We ultimately decided that when the bull market ended, we’d fully focus on scaling Bankless Nation through Bankless Media while simultaneously launching the fund to capture opportunities emerging in the coming bear market.
To build Bankless Ventures, we needed help.
Enter Ben Lakoff.
Ben’s roots run nearly as deep with me as Ryan’s do. Throughout the bull run, we always found each other at the same conferences, and we quickly became close friends.
At the end of an intense, exhausting DevCon in Bogotá, Ben and I decided to hike Monserrate together—one week long climb that took us up to 10,300 feet.
Between gasps for thin air, we discussed our experiences working in and investing in startups. We immediately realized Ben was the missing piece of the Bankless Ventures puzzle. With Ben joining as our third general partner, Bankless Ventures transformed from a roadmap idea into a real venture firm now closing its first fundraise.
Advisors
Joining us as advisors are two figures very familiar to Bankless podcast listeners: Justin Drake and Anthony Sassano.
Justin brings his experience as one of the world’s leading explorers of cryptoeconomic frontiers; while our media brother Anthony may be the single person who has created more content on Ethereum and its value than even Ryan or myself.
Pioneering the Frontier
So far, this has been the story of how Bankless Ventures (BVC) came to be—but the deeper question remains: why are we doing this?
As we scaled Bankless Media from a simple passion project into a well-oiled 20-person team, we came to appreciate the efficiency of working alongside smart, dedicated people. We now want to apply the same treatment to our investing and advisory work—so we can fully leverage the opportunities available to us, support pioneers in crypto, and expand the frontier.
Bankless Media is already committed to this mission—educating crypto natives and the crypto-curious to become citizens of the Bankless Nation.
BVC aims to double down by providing pioneers with the capital they need to build the frontier themselves. We focus on early-stage opportunities because we want to ensure that the right ideas get the resources to take root.
Bankless Media teaches you how to explore the frontier. Bankless Ventures provides the funding to build settlements.
The window during which humans can meaningfully shape the future of this industry is narrow. We want Bankless Ventures to be a force ensuring the right people have the resources to make crypto humanity’s best possible outcome.
The Media/Venture Divide
Bankless Ventures will not be a typical venture firm. Most firms try to build successful media businesses after raising their first fund.
We’ve already built one. This advantage gives us a platform to continue sharing our views on the future of crypto as usual, while using Bankless Ventures to help fund companies that align with that same vision. One key strength that has made our media network so successful in a crowded ocean is our storytelling ability.
This is a skill Ryan and I have honed over years as podcasters and writers—and personally, it’s what excites me most about launching Bankless Ventures. There are just so many incredible stories out there!
That said, we want the Bankless Nation to continue trusting how we curate the projects we discuss, the interviews we choose, and the insights we share on our podcast and newsletters—this hasn’t changed.
Although Ryan and I have made dozens of angel investments over the years, we’ve never used Bankless Media as a place to draw attention to our portfolio—we’ve never been interested in that, and our audience is too savvy for such stunts.
We’ll continue interviewing founders building projects aligned with our vision for the future—but Bankless Media is sacred ground.
It got here because Ryan and I never cut corners—we focused on building trust with our listeners and readers.
We don’t do paid interviews. We don’t run paid newsletters. Companies that want to reach our audience can buy ad space, which is always clearly labeled.
Bankless Ventures portfolio companies will not receive special access to Bankless Media or special sponsorship deals—they’ll pay the same rates as anyone else.
Balancing our roles across Bankless Media and Bankless Ventures won’t always be easy, but we’re committed to doing right by our readers and listeners.
We take disclosures extremely seriously—and always have. Ethics in crypto matter, and we intend to lead by example.
Have suggestions on how we can improve our disclosure practices?
We’re listening. Onboarding one billion people into crypto is our mission—and the unifying theme behind both Bankless Media and Bankless Ventures.
We’re incredibly excited about the opportunities ahead—and actively thinking through how to best seize them.
Spreading the Bankless message isn’t just a “job” for us—it’s our stance.
What’s Next?
Bankless Ventures has approximately 75% of its capital committed, with a goal to close fundraising by the end of May. We’ve already begun warehousing deals and will begin full deployment immediately after closing.
If you’re interested in investing in the Bankless Ventures fund, you can submit an expression of interest as an LP. (Sorry—only accredited investors, thanks to SEC regulations.)
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
Bankless
