CoinFund Grows Team with Three New Investors for Early-Stage Seed and Ventures Funds, Announces New Head of Business Development & Investor Relations

Firm's staff has grown by 20% in 2024, prepared to deploy significant capital

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CoinFund, one of the world's oldest and most experienced cryptonative investment firms and a registered investment adviser, today announced the growth of its Investment Team with three new hires. In addition, the firm announced the internal appointment of a new Head of Business Development and Investor Relations. The moves reflect CoinFund's deep conviction in the investment potential of the new internet, and ensures the firm is well-positioned to continue to deploy significant seed and early venture stage capital.

Across its current $157M Seed IV (2023) and $320M Ventures I (2022) funds, CoinFund invests in early stage crypto, blockchain and web3 companies, working to champion and back the leaders of the new internet. The firm partners with visionary founders throughout the lifecycle of their companies to assist them to become category leaders in emerging sectors. The CoinFund portfolio spans a nearly a decade of investments in the crypto ecosystem, including such areas as developer infrastructure, DeFi, fintech and real world assets, DePIN, DeAI, a variety of consumer services, as well as major base layer blockchains themselves.

Growing the Team as Crypto Adoption Continues, More Hires Expected

The global cryptocurrency market has evolved through 2024 with a wave of developments, signaling an environment ripe for new projects and emerging sectors. This year has brought a sharper focus on regulatory clarity, alongside the introduction of ETFs in the U.S. that directly invest in Bitcoin and Ether, marking significant milestones toward the industry's pursuit of institutional adoption. As of September 18, 2024, DeFi total value locked has once again grown to nearly $80B, up from a high of $54B in 2023, signaling onchain activity is slowly trending back toward prior cycle highs. Globally, crypto market capitalization has surpassed $2.14 trillion as of September 18, 2024; in March of this year, Bitcoin set a record high of $73,750 and continues to outperform the S&P on an annualized basis. These developments contribute to the firm's positive long-term outlook for blockchain and digital asset adoption worldwide.

David Pakman, Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund commented: "As digital assets continue to become a globally accepted investment category, CoinFund believes the best investing performance requires deep specialization in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems. The blockchain investment landscape is expanding: by geography, with more fruitful sub-sectors, more credible baselayers and a more mature developer stack, made more interesting as we get closer to regulatory clarity in the most critical regions. All of this is leading to more users onchain, more use cases for crypto and more and more developers building on decentralized platforms. To maintain our edge, we are excited to add to our investment team, enhancing our ability to identify and capitalize on the most promising high-growth opportunities in a rapidly evolving landscape."

Seasoned blockchain investor Bobby Beniers joins CoinFund as a Principal Investor focused on opportunities from Seed to Series A. He brings deep crypto infrastructure expertise and a passion for disruptive use cases like DePIN and DeAI. Before CoinFund, he served as an Investment Partner at Polychain Capital where he made a number of high quality investments including Movement Labs (Series A), Rio Network (Seed, acquired), and others. Beniers began his investing career at the tiger-cub hedge fund Matrix Capital covering crypto and software. Prior to becoming an investor, Beniers developed his passion for technology as a software engineer. Beniers holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Economics from Williams College.

Beniers commented: "Since 2015, CoinFund has managed to remain on the bleeding-edge of crypto innovation while molding an organization that, today, is purpose-built to amplify the efforts of founders. I'm thrilled to join them for my next chapter and look forward to support the mission to produce extraordinary outcomes for our LPs."

CoinFund also announced the addition of two Associates for its Seed and Venture investment strategies:

George Christopher has joined CoinFund as a Senior Associate, applying his experience evaluating, investing in, and supporting best-in-class technology companies. Christopher was formerly at Battery Ventures where he focused on investments in growth-stage software. Prior to Battery, he worked as an investment banking analyst at AGC Partners. Christopher graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor's Degree in Economics.

The firm welcomes Jonathan Rotbard as an Associate. Rotbard brings more than four years of expertise analyzing and investing in the digital asset landscape. Prior to CoinFund, Rotbard served as a Venture Investor at Corner Ventures where he focused on both private and liquid crypto investments. He began his career in blockchain as an Investment Banking Analyst at Moelis where he worked on deals across the crypto ecosystem, including the Voyager and BlockFi bankruptcies. Rotbard holds a Bachelor's of Business Administration from the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

All three hires will bolster the Seed and Ventures Investment team led by Pakman, Alex Felix and Jake Brukhman. CoinFund expects to continue hiring investors in addition to subject matter experts across the organization.

Pakman added: "Achieving outstanding returns for our LPs is our true north star. I believe we've honed an approach over nearly ten years that challenges our investors to think long-term, encourages non-consensus thinking and mixes individual responsibility with the value of a seasoned and proven investing team.  It has never been more important to invest in and nurture a free and decentralized internet. CoinFund is an exceptional place to advance your investing career and build a better future."

Institutional-Grade Service

CoinFund's staff has grown by 20% in 2024, with the addition of four subject matter specialists previously announced in July. Equally important to its culture, CoinFund strives to promote from within; the firm shares that Abbey Hamstra has been promoted to Head of Business Development and Investor Relations. Hamstra joined CoinFund in November 2021 as an Associate and has held roles of increasing responsibility since, most recently serving as Director of Business Development and Investor Relations.

"As CoinFund continues to scale its investments in blockchain and digital assets, we've seen more established and long term institutional backers seeking manager relationships," commented Alex Felix, cofounder and Chief Investment Officer, CoinFund. "The ongoing maturation of the industry represents one of the most compelling mega-trends of our time. Abbey has a seasoned view and proven ability to help our partners understand this unique opportunity and we're proud to announce her appointment."

Founded in 2015 at a Brooklyn kitchen table by Highbridge Capital Management and Amazon alum Jake Brukhman, and later joined by co-founder and American Capital alum Felix, CoinFund is now supported by a world class interdisciplinary global team of 30 people with more than 100 investments across six investment vehicles. Some of the firm's recent seed and venture fund investments include liquid restaking platform Ether.fi; the onchain open professional network Icebreaker; global compute resource platform Prime Intellect; blockchain climate technology company Raad Labs; smart account module innovator Rhinestone; and STON.fi, leading decentralized exchange in the TON ecosystem. More detail on CoinFund's portfolio companies can be found at https://coinfund.io/portfolio/. CoinFund is committed to supporting the development of the decentralized ecosystem and leveraging the potential of blockchain innovation to drive long-term value creation.

About CoinFund
CoinFund is one of the world's first cryptonative investment firms and a registered investment adviser founded in 2015. The firm champions the leaders of the new internet, powered by foresight as active investors to achieve extraordinary outcomes. CoinFund invests in seed, venture, and liquid opportunities within the blockchain sector with a focus on digital assets, decentralization technologies, and key enabling infrastructure. For more information, visit www.coinfund.io, LinkedIn or join us on X.

SOURCE CoinFund