The venture capital firm Electric Capital (THIS) announced in an official press release on Tuesday, March 1 that it had raised $1 billion. The funds are to be invested in two crypto funds, primarily in web 3.0 projects. A first fund of around 600 million US dollars will be invested in concrete crypto tokens. In return, a second fund with a volume of 400 million dollars focuses on young start-ups linked to Web 3.0.
The Electrical Capital analysts explain in their report that they have identified five global trends that they intend to cover with the funds. These include NFTs, DAOs, DeFi, decentralized blockchain infrastructure, and applications that enable user-friendly Web 3.0 integration. In a tweet, founding member Avichal Garg said the Web 3.0 economy will be one of the biggest disruptions of the 2020s (see Twitter post below).
In a league with Andreessen Horowitz?
With the capital raise, the Palo Alto asset manager has propelled itself into whole new spheres and could soon be in the same breath as Andreessen Horowitz (AH) to be named. The California-based venture capital firm is currently one of Silicon Valley’s biggest early investors and was early on with names like Twitter, Facebook, Coinbase, OpenSeaor also Uniswap on board. Although the venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz with assets under management of approximately $28 billion, the launch of two new funds with a volume of $1 billion is already an exclamation point from EC for big names in the industry.
Moreover, it is becoming clear that the topics of crypto and blockchain have finally arrived in Silicon Valley. In Teck Mecca, California, cryptocurrencies have long been overlooked. The decentralized structure of many crypto projects likely played a role in this. Nonetheless, prominent investors such as Peter Thiel – at the time co-founder of PayPal and CEO of the Founders Fund – have often complained that Wall Street and Silicon Valley initially overslept on the crypto trend.
Who is Electric Capital?
Electric Capital is a Palo Alto, California-based venture capital firm founded in 2018. The firm specializes in innovative technologies, but primarily in the areas of cryptocurrencies, blockchain and fintech . Some of the best-known early investments include CLOSE, Oasis, Lightning Labs, Infinitebut also the crypto index fund Bitwise as well as the crypto trading platform octopuses.
The Electric Capital team is made up of high-level employees. According to the company’s own information, the founding team is made up of former high-ranking senior executives from names like Google and Facebook.
Illustrious founding member
Even for hardcore crypto fans, the name Electric Capital is often rather unfamiliar. However, its founding member Avichal Garg is probably more familiar. The American’s resume looks like something out of a Silicon Valley textbook. A bachelor’s and master’s degree from the famous Stanford University was followed by positions at Facebook and Google as well as several successful start-ups before finally founding Electric Capital in March 2018. He is still a managing partner there today.
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