Original Title: "With support from a16z and Tiger Global, what projects has Volt Capital invested in for reverse investment?"

Original Source: PANews

According to a report from Swiss investment advisor 21e6 Capital AG, as of August this year, 97 of the more than 700 cryptocurrency funds worldwide have closed. The firm stated that "most funds have positive returns, but in many cases, this is not enough to attract capital." The current "capital winter" inevitably makes people miss the "glory" of cryptocurrency funds in the past. For example, in the first half of last year, according to PANews statistics, a total of 107 Web3-related funds were launched globally, with a total size of nearly $40 billion. Among them were top-tier venture capitalists such as Tiger Global and a16z, which raised over $10 billion and $4.5 billion respectively, and both supported a new venture capital firm called Volt Capital during this period.

Last May, Volt Capital announced that it had raised $50 million for its second cryptocurrency fund, with support from a16z general partners Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, as well as other supporters such as Tiger Global and angel investor Elad Gil. As a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups, Volt Capital has invested in over 30 early-stage cryptocurrency companies and protocols, including Magic Eden, Nansen, LayerZero, Magic, Coinshift, Thirdweb, and Sound, since 2020.

90s Founder Soona Amhaz Shifts from Crypto Community to Investment

Volt Capital's founder and general partner, Soona Amhaz, graduated from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. During her time in college, she spent a lot of time on Reddit, with Bitcoin being the main topic of discussion. However, at the time, Soona felt that the cryptocurrency industry was not mature enough and was worried about not having a long-term career in the field. Therefore, after graduating from college in 2015, Soona chose to join data intelligence solution provider Alation as the company's 20th employee. At that time, Alation had just completed its Series A financing with support from a16z, DCVC, and other institutions, and was a very promising startup (last November, Alation raised $123 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion).

Soona continued to closely follow the cryptocurrency industry even after starting her career in it. At the time, people mainly relied on Reddit, Coindesk, and Twitter for news, but the content and information were somewhat scattered. This led her to come up with the idea of creating a vibrant, high-quality, and trustworthy community. In 2017, she co-founded the cryptocurrency community Token Daily with others, and without any marketing, they gained over 16,000 readers who actively participated in events with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other vertical builders.

As time goes by, many projects have started to contact her before starting. Some projects will also seek feedback on product strategy and related talents from her and the community before raising funds, and seek help in distribution and dissemination through newsletters. Gradually, Token Daily's information network has also achieved Soona's interpersonal network. She has met many excellent teams building potential projects in the cryptocurrency field and has been informed of project progress ahead of time. When she saw a large amount of funds pouring into the cryptocurrency industry and many projects she knew had potential receiving investment from investment institutions, she realized that she had an advantage in this area. After a period of personal investment, Soona finally decided to establish her own fund, Volt Capital, in 2019.

It is worth mentioning that in the same year Volt Capital was established, Lebanon experienced a financial crisis, with cumulative inflation reaching as high as 4667% as of August this year. Soona's family in Lebanon lost a lot of assets as a result. Soona suggested that they convert their remaining assets into Bitcoin to protect themselves from further currency depreciation and currency controls, which gave her a deeper understanding of the value of cryptocurrency.

获得到顶级机构和投资人支持

Received support from top institutions and investors.

In April 2021, Soona Amhaz, who had just been selected for Forbes' 30 under 30 in the venture capital field the previous year, announced that Volt Capital had launched its first fund and raised $10 million for it. The fund received support from well-known investors and investment institutions such as Web3 venture CMT Digital, former Coinbase CTO and a16z former general partner Balaji Srinivasan, Union Square Ventures managing partner Albert Wenger, and Founders Fund partner Brian Singerman. The raised funds will be used to invest in cryptocurrency data, infrastructure, and DeFi startups.

In the first half of 2022, various investment institutions successively announced the establishment of cryptocurrency funds, with even giants like a16z directly launching a CryptoFundIV with a scale of up to $4.5 billion. Volt Capital also announced in May of that year that it had raised $50 million for its second cryptocurrency fund, with support from a16z general partners Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, as well as other supporters including Tiger Global, angel investor Elad Gil, hedge fund manager Brevan Howard, and Albert Wenger. The fund is used to invest in cryptocurrency infrastructure, DeFi, NFT, and DAO-related projects, and focuses on early-stage Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A equity financing.

Volt Capital's Investment Portfolio Overview

Corresponding to the launch time of the fund, most of Volt Capital's investments are concentrated in the first quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2022. Its most recent investment is Spearbit, a Web3 security company that completed a $7 million financing round in August of this year, with Framework Ventures leading the investment. In addition, in May of this year, Magic, a provider of Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS), announced that it had raised $52 million in a strategic financing round led by PayPal Ventures. As a seed investor in the project, Volt Capital participated again.

According to public information collected from the Volt Capital website and PANews, Volt Capital has currently invested in at least 30 cryptocurrency projects. As mentioned above, their investment focus is on infrastructure and tools, NFTs, and digital asset tracks, including vertical segments such as cryptocurrency wallets, DeFi, infrastructure layers, software development, data storage, security and privacy. In addition, except for leading the seed round financing of NFT fraud detection startup Yakoa, all other rounds of investment are follow-up investments.

The following is a brief introduction to the Volt Capital investment portfolio.

Infrastructure and Tools

Nansen: A blockchain analysis platform that announced the completion of a $1.2 million seed round of financing in October 2020, with Mechanism Capital and Skyfall Ventures leading the investment and Robot Ventures and Fabric Ventures participating.

Magic: A provider of Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) for the encryption industry. In June 2020, Magic announced that it had raised $4 million in seed funding led by Placeholder, with participation from Lightspeed Ventures and Volt Capital. In May 2023, it announced that it had raised $52 million in strategic financing led by PayPal Ventures, with follow-on investments from Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone, and Volt Capital.

Cashmere: Solana ecosystem enterprise wallet management company, completed a $3 million seed round financing in August 2022, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Y Combinator, and others.

Liquality: A multi-chain wallet, with its Liquality SDK aiming to provide users with a seamless experience. In August 2021, it completed a $7 million financing round with participation from Hashed, Coinbase, and others.

Thirdweb: Web3 software development company, announced a $5 million financing in May 2021, with participation from Mark Cuban and Volt Capital founder Soona Amhaz. In August 2022, it completed a $24 million financing with a valuation of $160 million, led by Haun Ventures and including Coinbase Ventures as a participant.

layerzero: Interoperability protocol for the entire chain.

Koop: A Web3 protocol focused on creator economy. In August 2022, it announced the completion of a $5 million financing round, led by 1confirmation and Variant Fund, with participation from DeFi Alliancel and others.

Penumbra Labs: Cosmos ecosystem privacy layer network, announced the completion of a $4.75 million seed round financing in November 2021, led by Dragonfly Capital and participated by Robot Ventures.

Spearbit: Web3 security company, announced the completion of a $7 million financing round in August 2023, led by Framework Ventures with participation from Breed VC and Robot Ventures.

Squads: A DAO infrastructure project that announced the completion of a $5 million strategic financing round in February 2022. Multicoin Capital led the round with participation from Jump Capital, Delphi Digital, and others.

KYVE: Decentralized data storage solution, completed a $1 million pre-seed funding round in June 2021 with participation from the Solana Foundation and others.

Cozy Finance: A licensed peer-to-peer protection solution that allows users to invest in DeFi and prevent hacking, exploitation, etc. Completed a $2 million seed round of financing in September 2020 with participation from Dragonfly, Electric Capital, and others.

NFT

Magic Eden: NFT trading platform.

sound: Decentralized music streaming platform.

center: NFT tool company, products include NFT rendering API and multi-chain interoperability auxiliary tools.

Metahood: A startup company in the metaverse industry. In January 2023, it announced the completion of a $3 million seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation, with participation from Neon DAO, The Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget, and others.

Pinata: A Web3 infrastructure provider focused on NFTs, announced in August 2022 that it had completed a $21.5 million financing round, including $18 million in Series A financing and $3.5 million in seed financing raised in 2021. The two rounds of financing were jointly led by Greylock and Pantera, and Greylock and Offline Ventures, with participation from Volt Capital, OpenSea, and Alchemy.

MetaStreet: NFT collateralized lending liquidity provider, offering liquidity and scaling solutions for NFT collateral platforms. In February 2022, it announced a $14 million funding round, including $3 million in seed funding and $11 million in initial liquidity, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Ethereal Ventures, Sfermion, Nascent Capital, Delphi INFINFT, Alliance, and others.

Yakoa: NFT fraud detection startup, announced the completion of a $4.8 million seed round in November 2022, with Brevan Howard Digital, Volt Capital, and Collab+Currency leading the investment.

Recur: NFT brand experience company, announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing in April 2021, led by DeFi Alliance, with participation from IOSG Ventures, Delphi Digital, Volt Capital, and others. In September 2021, it announced a $50 million Series A financing at a valuation of $333 million, with Volt Capital participating again. Recently, RECUR announced that it will be completely shut down on November 16, 2023.

Digital Assets

slingshot: Decentralized exchange platform (formerly known as DEX.AG)

Parsec Finance: DeFi and analysis platform, providing technical analysis for traders and data-focused users. Completed a $1.2 million seed round financing in January 2021, with participation from Polychain and others.

giving block: A cryptocurrency donation market founded in 2018. In March 2022, it was acquired by Shift4, a US-based payment company, but it still maintains its autonomy and operates independently.

coinshift: A financial management and infrastructure platform that provides financial management tools for DAOs and Web3 companies. In October 2021, it raised $2.5 million in seed funding, with investors including Sequoia Capital India, Fintech Collective, Consensys Mesh, Defi Alliance, and Volt Capital. In May 2022, it completed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Sequoia Capital India and Volt Capital.

CoinLedger: A cryptocurrency tax reporting platform that completed a $6 million financing round in February 2022 with participation from CMT Digital and others.

Parcel: An Indian startup aimed at helping DAOs with financial management. In January 2021, it completed a $500,000 pre-seed round of financing with participation from Consensys and others.

Other:

Lines: Web3 social platform, announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing in July 2022, led by former Twitter VP Elad Gil, with participation from Scalar Capital and others.

Merkle Manufactory: The developer of the decentralized social network protocol Farcaster, founded by former Coinbase executive Dan Romero. In July 2022, it announced the completion of a $30 million financing round, with a16z leading and 1confirmation, Scalar Capital, Coinbase Ventures and others participating.

Matrix: Create cryptocurrency protocols for creators, gamify fan engagement and other digital brand games. Completed a $470,000 pre-seed round of financing in June 2020.

BAYZ: Web3 gaming guild that completed a $4 million financing round in December 2021, led by Yield Guild Games with participation from BITKRAFT.

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