A Deep Dive into Crypto VC Borderless Capital: Started with Algorand, Now Betting Big on DePIN
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A Deep Dive into Crypto VC Borderless Capital: Started with Algorand, Now Betting Big on DePIN
Before launching its $100 million DePIN fund, Borderless Capital, an Algorand-focused firm, began early exploration and strategic positioning in the "DePIN" space.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Zen, PANews
Recently, Borderless Capital launched a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) fund with $100 million in backing. Investors include Peaq, a blockchain focused on DePIN, as well as the Solana Foundation, Jump Crypto, and IoTeX.
The new fund is led by Álvaro Gracia, former executive at Telefónica, and Sean Carey, co-founder of Helium, and supported by layer-1 blockchains Peaq and Solana Foundation, along with Jump Crypto and IoTeX. Partner Álvaro Gracia stated: "DePIN will become the global standard for deploying physical infrastructure, coordinating human resources, and generating billions in passive income, while offering users easier access and lower costs."
Team Background
David Garcia, co-founder and managing partner at Borderless Capital, has extensive experience in technology and finance, having invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major digital assets since 2014. His career in the crypto industry began at Ripio (formerly Bitpagos), a Bitcoin and digital payments startup, where he served as Senior Vice President responsible for driving strategic opportunities and expanding into new markets. Prior to founding Borderless in 2018, he was a partner at CAF, Latin America’s first fund investing in crypto assets, during which time he also served as Managing Director of RCN, a global peer-to-peer credit network protocol.
Arul Murugan is Chairman and Founding Managing Partner at Borderless Capital, with over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience and more than 10 years in venture investing. In 2003, he founded Enrich, an Oracle enterprise solutions provider offering end-to-end Oracle ERP solutions covering procurement, supply chain, and finance across North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2015, Arul sold Enrich to a major private equity firm. He then transitioned into venture capital, launching 11-11 Ventures in 2016, focused on blockchain and early-stage tech investments. In 2018, he co-founded Borderless with David Garcia, whom he met in the Bahamas.
Álvaro Gracia is a Partner at Borderless Capital’s DePIN Fund, focusing on accelerating the growth of the DePIN ecosystem through investments in top-tier projects. With a background in investment management and venture capital, Álvaro previously led investment initiatives at multinational telecom giant Telefónica, executing investments in cybersecurity, cloud, and blockchain technologies. In 2016, he founded decentralize.capital, a digital asset research firm. He joined Borderless in October 2021, primarily focusing on infrastructure and application-layer projects within the DePIN ecosystem.
Development History
Since early 2018, David Garcia and Arul Murugan have jointly invested in multiple blockchain projects. High-performance public blockchain Algorand stands out as one of their representative investments—they are among Algorand's largest investors and earliest supporters. Before establishing Borderless Capital's predecessor Algo Capital, they had already invested a total of $8 million in Algorand's Series A round. Algo Capital was initially created to drive adoption and create necessary network effects within the Algorand ecosystem. It should be noted that Algo Capital is a completely independent entity from Algorand Inc. and the Algorand Foundation, with investment decisions and portfolio management solely under the control of David and Arul.
In June 2019, Algo Capital launched its $200 million ALGO Fund I. The following year, to better reflect its brand values and mission, Algo Capital rebranded as Borderless Capital, maintaining the same core mission, vision, and investment strategy—continuing to prioritize leading projects built on the Algorand network to advance Algorand's vision of a "borderless economy." In June 2021, Borderless announced a collaboration with Algorand and Circle to launch a $25 million Miami Blockchain Fund; later that year, Borderless announced it was launching a $500 million ALGO Fund II to support projects built on the Algorand blockchain.
In May 2023, Borderless Capital announced it was leading the formation of a new $50 million fund to support projects focused on cross-chain innovation. This fund is backed by interoperability platform Wormhole, with additional investors including Jump Crypto, Arrington Capital, Solana Foundation, and Aptos Labs. In October of the same year, Borderless Capital partnered with Wormhole to launch the Base Camp accelerator program—a 12-week initiative designed to support Web3 projects aiming to leverage Wormhole’s cross-chain messaging protocol, funded by the $50 million new fund.
In March 2024, Borderless Capital acquired Miami-based quantitative trading and asset management firm CTF Capital—its first acquisition since inception in 2018. CTF Capital maintains technical and operations teams in Latin America and has developed trading models and capabilities using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) strategy engines; automated market making (AMM), a decentralized exchange utilizing algorithmic trading of digital assets; and maximum extractable value (MEV) strategies. Following this acquisition, Borderless Capital’s assets under management (AUM) exceeded $500 million, growing its team to nearly 40 employees and formally expanding its operations into the Latin American region.
Betting on DePIN
Prior to launching this $100 million DePIN fund, Borderless Capital—long focused on the Algorand ecosystem—had already begun exploring and positioning itself within the "DePIN" space.
In July 2021, Borderless launched the $10 million HNT.Fund, backed by Adam Bain, former COO of Twitter, and Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon. HNT.Fund marked Borderless’ first fund not tied to Algorand, aimed at mining and staking HNT, the native token of the Helium network. Beyond long-term holdings of HNT tokens and equity in Helium developer Nova Labs, Borderless has made significant investments across the broader DePIN ecosystem. Key focus areas include wireless IoT and cellular/5G networks, mobility and spatial location data collection, file storage, edge computing, and weather and pollution monitoring.
Borderless believes the development of the Helium network offers valuable lessons and insights for the wider DePIN sector. While Helium saw rapid deployment of devices, actual network utilization remains in very early stages. Therefore, DePIN protocols need to go beyond incentivizing device deployment and instead focus on deploying hardware that maximizes adoption, usage, and real-world utility. It also notes that DePIN networks compete based on four key factors: rapid network growth via token-based incentives, crowdsourced hardware (capital expenditure) costs, hardware embedded with financial systems, and open-source innovation and competition.
It further argues that DePIN networks are essential to unlocking global adoption of web3 technology and economics, as they connect cryptocurrencies and smart contracts with the tangible familiarity of real-world utilities and physical assets. While innovative tokenomics drive early network growth, their long-term value stems from deployed hardware infrastructure and actual use cases at scale. Over time, this creates compounding value, offering a defensive opportunity to diversify risk within cryptocurrency portfolios.
Investment Portfolio
Since 2018, Borderless has made over 250 investments across infrastructure, business applications, and emerging crypto protocols. According to PANews, Borderless disclosed at least 18 investments this year alone, primarily concentrated in DePIN and infrastructure projects. Particularly in the DePIN space, Borderless frequently appears as a lead investor. Below is a summary of Borderless' investments this year:
DePIN:
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IoTeX: An IoT blockchain platform, raised $50 million in April with participation from Amber Group;
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Digital Infrastructure: A decentralized physical infrastructure network, completed an $11.5 million Series A round in January, led by CoinFund;
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WeatherXM: A crypto-powered weather station network and weather data provider, closed a $7.7 million Series A round in May, led by Lightspeed Faction;
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Ambient: A Solana-based DePIN project, acquired PlanetWatch—an environmental data project built on Algorand—in March, and announced a $2 million seed round in May, led by Borderless Capital;
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Natix: A DePIN project focused on map data, raised $4.6 million in April, led by Borderless Capital;
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Peaq: A Layer 1 blockchain platform, raised $15 million in March to expand its DePIN ecosystem, co-led by Generative Ventures and Borderless Capital;
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Silencio Network: A decentralized solution provider combating noise pollution, closed a $1 million pre-seed round in February, led by Borderless Capital;
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Wingbits: Building a DePIN flight-tracking network on Solana, raised $3.5 million in a seed round in September, co-led by Borderless Capital and Tribe Capital;
Infrastructure & Tools:
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Hypernative: A Web3 security company, closed a $16 million Series A round in September, led by Quantstamp;
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OpenLedger: Focused on building permissionless, data-driven infrastructure for AI development, raised $8 million in a seed round in July, co-led by Polychain Capital and Borderless Capital;
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Tanssi Network: An appchain infrastructure protocol, raised $6 million in a strategic round in March, co-led by Scytale Digital, KR1, and SNZ;
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Bagel Network: A decentralized data platform supporting machine learning (ML) models, raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed round in January, led by CoinFund;
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Mayan: A cross-chain auction protocol, raised $3 million in a seed round in April, co-led by Borderless Capital and 6th Man Ventures;
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Zircuit: An EVM-compatible zkRollup network, completed mainnet fundraising in July, with participation from Binance Labs, Amber Group, and others;
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Synonym Finance: A universal cross-chain credit layer, raised $1.5 million in a seed round in January, led by Borderless Capital;
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Biconomy: A multi-chain infrastructure developer, completed a strategic funding round in March, with participation from Jump Capital and others
DeFi:
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Amnis Finance: A liquid staking protocol, raised $2 million in September, co-led by Borderless Capital and OKX Ventures;
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Zoth: An RWA platform, raised $2.5 million in April, led by Blockchain Founders Fund
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