Blockchain and crypto-focused investment firm CoinFund today announced its new $300 million early-stage Web3 venture fund, CoinFund Ventures I.

The new fund was backed by a combination of institutional investors, family offices and crypto company founders, the company said. It would be aimed at complementing the firm’s well-established seed-stage investment program by providing early-stage funds for Web3 and blockchain startups showing traction in the market.

“Tech entrepreneurs and venture investors are taught to look for architectural transitions that disrupt past models and create new ground for companies to build enormous value,” said David Pakman, managing partner and head of venture investing at CoinFund. “In my 30 years in tech, I have never seen a bigger opportunity than crypto and Web3.”

Web3 is the label given to the next iteration of the web, also known as the decentralized web, which allows for financial transactions to be done peer-to-peer using blockchain technology. These decentralized transactions occur using smart contracts without the need for middlemen or banks and have given rise to new paradigms such as decentralized finance, or DeFi, crypto token economies, decentralized gaming, digital assets and more.

CoinFund has been company building and investing for more than seven years and has expanded its team to more than 30 people. With CoinFund Ventures I, Pakman said the firm seeks to position itself competitively in the industry, deepen its support of Web3 startups that are just starting out, and broaden its portfolio of more than 100 companies.

In the announcement, Pakman noted that of the 725 new venture-funded startups founded this year 138, or 19% of them, were crypto or Web3. That suggests that the trend is only just starting and not stopping anytime soon, he contends.

CoinFund has been involved in multiple major raises for blockchain and Web3 companies, including blockchain infrastructure management company Blockdaemon, nonfungible token marketplace Rarible, and layer-1 blockchain Solana Labs.

“CoinFund understands the challenges and complexities of running institutional infrastructure in a multichain world,” said Konstantin Richter, founder and chief executive of Blockdaemon. “We value their cryptonative culture and look forward to collaborating with their team as we continue to grow.”

The new fund will invest in blockchain, crypto and Web3 projects and companies that focus on layer-1 blockchains, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, payments, asset management, exchanges, marketplaces and decentralized applications.

According to Pakman, he believes that “the next architectural transition” is here with Web3 and the best people to invest in it are those who already have knowledge of that landscape and focus only on the industry, unbiased by legacy approaches to building technology.

“Web3 entrepreneurs clearly appreciate cryptonative investing teams as helpful allies, and we look forward to working with ambitious and driven entrepreneurs to build a permissionless, decentralized and community-owned internet, rewire the global financial system, and unlock enormous value for intellectual property,” said Pakman.

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