Lightspeed Faction Debuts $285M Venture Fund

Republished By Plato

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Lightspeed Faction, a joint venture with Lightspeed Venture Partners, launched its first fund on Nov. 9 after raising $285M to invest in early-stage web3 startups.

Faction announced the news on Nov. 9, noting it hopes to act as a long-term capital partner for emerging blockchain projects. Faction added that the fund will provide support to crypto teams on a wide range of subjects from tokenomics to operational scaling.

Faction spans former alumni of Coinbase, Amber Group, and Blockchain.com. Faction will collaborate with Lightspeed on “blockchain-related matters” but operate the fund independently with “full discretion over the $285M of capital raised.”

“The blockchain ecosystem is full of promising projects looking to disrupt everything from financial systems to telecommunication and we look forward to collaborating with them to nurture the next phase of blockchain innovation,” said Banafsheh Fathieh, co-founder and general partner at Faction. “We are steadfast in our conviction that crypto is a generation-defining technology.”

Faction’s launch comes as the digital asset markets are starting to recover from the brutal web3 downturn that began last year.

While many venture firms tightened their belts amid the downtrend — with some active crypto investors even exiting the space to focus on AI, Faction said it was backing digital asset projects throughout the bear market.

Faction said its fund will focus on teams providing “real-world utility to users and businesses” through blockchain technology. Faction’s existing investments include Matter Labs — the team behind the ZkSync Era Layer 2, Lens — the social media protocol from Aave, and Crossmint — a payment tool for NFT developers.

The company’s founders estimate they have deployed more than $500M combined to blockchain and early-stage start-ups in their careers. “We’ve been doing this for a long time and intend to be a dependable financing partner in the cycles yet to come,” said Samuel Harrison, co-founder and managing partner of Faction.