After Raising $60 Million, Which Areas Will Crypto VC Firm RW3 Ventures Invest In?
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After Raising $60 Million, Which Areas Will Crypto VC Firm RW3 Ventures Invest In?
RW3's target investments will help bridge Web2 and Web3.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Zen, PANews
Recently, RW3 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the blockchain industry, announced it has raised $60 million for its Fund I LP, aiming to invest in teams seeking to leverage blockchain technology to disrupt real-world industries and business models. The fund is backed by several institutions, including The Raptor Group and Mubadala Capital—the wholly-owned asset management subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based global sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company.
RW3 Ventures was established in 2021 in partnership with Jim Pallotta’s family office, The Raptor Group—a family office and venture capital firm founded in 2009 that primarily invests in technology, consumer, financial services, healthcare, sports, and media verticals. Benefiting from Raptor's successful track record in early investments, RW3 Ventures can leverage its experienced internal teams in operations, legal, accounting, finance, and compliance.
The RW3 Ventures Team
The RW3 team possesses extensive operational and investment experience at prominent digital asset firms and financial institutions, along with a broad network across the blockchain ecosystem. Founder and Managing Partner Pete Najarian brings deep expertise from both traditional and crypto markets. He began his career in 1993 at Merrill Lynch, working in fixed income sales and trading. He later helped lead global emerging markets businesses at UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), where his interest in emerging markets first introduced him to Bitcoin. After gaining deeper insights into blockchain, Pete joined Xapo, a cryptocurrency custodian, as Senior Vice President—its business was acquired by Coinbase in 2019. Subsequently, he served as Chief Risk Officer at BitGo, another crypto custody provider.
Jim Pallotta, founder of The Raptor Group, serves on RW3’s investment committee. Prior to founding Raptor, Jim was Vice Chairman at Tudor Investments Corporation, managing a $10 billion equity portfolio. He previously served as president and chairman of Italian football club AS Roma and remains a co-owner and executive board member of the Boston Celtics. Throughout his career, Jim has actively invested in seed, early, growth, and late-stage companies across technology, consumer, financial services, healthcare, sports, and media sectors.
Joe Bruzzesi is also a General Partner at RW3, bringing over a decade of experience building, advising, and investing in early fintech startups. Before joining RW3, Joe led Americas operations at BitGo, overseeing more than $10 billion in digital asset transactions with top-tier blockchain protocols, crypto investment funds, corporations, and institutional investors. Beyond BitGo, Joe’s advisory and investment experience includes being one of the earliest advisors to Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche public chain, and serving as an early investor in Gryphon Mining, Codex Energy, Arcade.XYZ, and Casper Labs.
Focus on Infrastructure and Web3 Consumer Investments
RW3 employs a collaborative, hands-on approach to help Web3 founders grow and scale their platforms. In addition to deploying capital, RW3 Ventures supports startups in hiring talent, building communities, and enhancing technical development capabilities. Its Fund I will apply RW3’s institutional methodology, focusing on opportunities from seed to Series A stages, prioritizing teams that aim to use blockchain technology to disrupt real-world industries and business models while targeting sizable addressable markets. Joe Bruzzesi told Fortune magazine that the fund’s primary focus is on real-world use cases of blockchain.
To date, the fund has made at least 25 investments in areas including blockchain protocols, decentralized infrastructure, fully homomorphic encryption, and gaming. Projects it has invested in, along with their respective funding rounds, include:
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Titan Content: An entertainment company aiming to integrate traditional K-pop business models and content with Web3, metaverse, and AI innovations. Completed a seed round in November 2023, led by RW3 and Raptor, with Dreamus Company as co-lead, and participation from Animoca Ventures, Sfermion, and Avalanche.
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Artifact Lab: A platform for in-game user profiles and monetization. Raised $2 million in a pre-seed round in November 2023, led by RW3 Ventures and IOSG Ventures.
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Bazooka Tango: Developer of Shardbound, a Web3 tactical collectible card game. Closed a $5 million funding round in November 2023, led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from RW3 Ventures, Sfermion, Foresight Ventures, and Builder Capital.
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Rymedi: A blockchain-based Web3 healthcare data platform. Raised $9 million in a Series A round in October 2023, co-led by RW3 Ventures and White Star Capital, with participation from Blockchange Ventures and the Avalanche Blizzard Fund.
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CAT Labs: A cryptographic asset forensics and cybersecurity company. Raised $4.3 million in April 2023, with participation from Castle Island Ventures and CMT Digital.
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Figment: A staking services provider. Closed a $110 million Series C round in December 2021 at a $1.4 billion valuation, led by Thoma Bravo, with participation from Counterpoint Global, Binance, and ParaFi Capital.
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Ledn: A cryptocurrency lending platform. Raised $70 million in a Series B round in December 2021, achieving a post-money valuation of $540 million, led by 10T Holdings.
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Mysten Labs: The developer of the Sui public chain. Closed a $300 million Series B round in September 2022 at a valuation exceeding $2 billion, led by FTX Ventures, with participation from a16z Crypto and Jump Crypto.
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Helium (Nova Labs): A decentralized wireless network. Raised $200 million in a Series D round in March 2022 at a $1 billion pre-money valuation, co-led by Tiger Global and a16z Crypto.
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Breach: A cryptocurrency insurance company. Closed a funding round in June 2023, led by RW3 and LightShed Ventures, with participation from Foundation Capital, Road Capital, and Republic Capital.
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Thetanuts Finance: A crypto derivatives platform. Raised $18 million in a seed round in March 2022, led by Three Arrows Capital, Deribit, QCP Capital, and Jump Crypto.
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Gunzilla Games: A AAA game studio building on an Avalanche subnet, developer of the cyberpunk battle royale game Off The Grid. Raised $46 million in August 2022, led by Republic Capital, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Animoca Brands, and Jump Crypto.
In addition, RW3 has invested in the NEAR Protocol, Shrapnel (an Avalanche-based shooter game), NFT game MojoMelee, decentralized broadcast delivery network Blockcast, Multiswap (an AMM protocol on Avalanche), Bloxtel (a blockchain mobile operator), Cornami (a real-time computing service for crypto datasets), Source Network (a decentralized tool and infrastructure focused on data interoperability and privacy), Trac (a decentralized meta-protocol tracker native to Bitcoin), Satoshi Mining (a Bitcoin mining company), and Sats App (a payment application).
Regarding investment methods, Pete Najarian said RW3 prefers combining traditional equity with token warrants—an approach common among crypto venture funds—though the firm also engages in pure token deals. RW3 may also invest in publicly traded liquid tokens, but such holdings are capped at no more than 20% of its overall portfolio.
“We believe many target markets are limited, built solely to serve the needs of the crypto-native world,” he added. “RW3’s target investments will help bridge Web2 and Web3.”
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