A company spokesperson told CoinDesk that Dragonfly Capital has closed its third fund with $650 million in capital, pushing its assets under management to around $3 billion. In addition to Tiger Global, KKR and Sequoia China as limited partners, the fund will focus on blockchain and crypto companies creating “new digital economies.”
Initial plans called for raising $500 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2022.
Through its previous funds launched in 2018 and 2021 for $100 million and $225 million respectively, Dragonfly has invested in almost 60 companies. Dragonfly is planning to invest in blockchain and crypto-native companies, protocols, and tokens at all stages.
In terms of size, Dragonfly is on par with Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital, which each recently made nearly $600 million in crypto investments, which shows that crypto investment is a rapidly growing market.
As of 2018, Dragonfly Capital’s portfolio includes the smart contracts platform Avalanche, blockchain layer 1 platform Near Protocol, DAI token creator MakerDAO and zkSync creator Matter Labs.
“We see more opportunities across the different stages and through the lifecycle of a company or protocol,” the firm’s managing partner, Haseeb Qureshi, told TechCrunch. “Also, the market has also grown so much. When we first started investing, the entire market for crypto was a few hundreds of billions and now it’s in the multitrillions.”
In an email to CoinDesk, Dragonfly Capital General Partner Tom Schmidt said the new fund will allow the firm to lead rounds in later-stage companies.
“Since inception, we have always backed founders at earliest stages, and continued to back our portfolio companies into later stages. We haven’t always had the funds to lead further rounds and double down on teams we believe in,” Schmidt said. “With Fund III, we can back teams throughout their lifecycle and new founders as their companies mature.”
