Vessel Capital, the pioneering venture capital firm, has just unveiled an impressive $55 million fund dedicated to fueling the Web3 infrastructure and applications ecosystem, as reported by TechCrunch. Their mission is crystal clear: not just to expand, but to empower crypto visionaries steering the helm of early-stage startups, catalyzing their launch and exponential growth.
In the words of Mirza Uddin, a luminary co-founder who also happens to spearhead business development at Injective Labs, “The crypto landscape has transcended boundaries, evolving into a global phenomenon far beyond the confines of the 2018-2020 era. Our ambition is to extend our helping hand to a broader spectrum of individuals.”
This visionary team doesn’t stop at Vessel Capital; it also boasts the presence of Eric Chen, the esteemed CEO of the Injective protocol, and Anthony Anzalone, the co-founder of Burnt (previously Burnt Finance), a Web3 powerhouse actively constructing XION, a groundbreaking layer-1 blockchain designed to propel mass consumer adoption.
The fund’s ample resources are strategically earmarked for a five-year deployment. Leveraging our team’s extensive experience as startup founders, Vessel confidently positions itself as a beacon of understanding when it comes to entrepreneurs’ needs. Uddin asserts, “It’s not uncommon for VCs to lack expertise in their investment domains.” He astutely observes, “While the world may have its fair share of VCs, what’s conspicuously absent is genuine guidance and practical advice.” Uddin elaborates further:
“Most times you’ll get a nice check, a pretty logo on your website, but other than that VCs don’t help much aside from intros from time to time.“
Vessel’s debut arrives with confidence despite the recent downturn in the crypto venture capital (VC) landscape. In June, investment deals witnessed a substantial 29.73% decline, resulting in just $779.32 million raised from 62 transactions, as per data from the Cointelegraph Research Venture Capital Database. Notably, Sequoia Capital, a VC giant, recently adjusted its cryptocurrency fund from $585 million to $200 million, citing a liquidity crunch and a pivot towards smaller crypto enterprises.
However, it’s essential to underscore that Web3 infrastructure continues to attract significant interest from investors. Just this week, Binance’s venture capital arm, Binance Labs, made a strategic investment in Delphinus Lab’s zero-knowledge WebAssembly virtual machine, which facilitates zero-knowledge-proof computations.
In a LinkedIn post, Uddin emphasized, “Web3 infrastructure and applications are poised to revolutionize the very foundation of a new Internet economy, ushering in a more innovative, decentralized, and capital-efficient society.”