Backed by a16z and Tiger Global, what projects has Volt Capital, which aims to do reverse investing, invested in?

Author: Zen, PANews
According to a report by Swiss investment advisor 21e6 Capital AG, as of August this year, 97 of the world's more than 700 cryptocurrency funds have closed. The agency said: "Most funds have positive returns, but in many cases, this is not enough to attract capital." The current "capital winter" inevitably makes people miss the "glory" of crypto funds in the past. For example, in the first half of last year, according to PANews statistics, a total of 107 Web3-related funds were launched worldwide, with a total scale of nearly US$40 billion, including top venture capital firms such as Tiger Global and a16z, which raised tens of billions and US$4.5 billion respectively. During this period, these two giants also supported a new venture capital firm called Volt Capital.
Last May, Volt Capital announced that it had raised $50 million for its second crypto fund and received support from a16z general partners Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon. Other supporters of the fund include Tiger Global, angel investor Elad Gil, etc. As a venture capital firm focusing on early-stage startups, Volt Capital has made more than 30 investments in early-stage crypto companies and protocols such as Magic Eden, Nansen, LayerZero, Magic, Coinshift, Thirdweb and Sound since 2020.
Post-90s founder Soona Amhaz turns from crypto community to investment
Soona Amhaz, founder and general partner of Volt Capital, graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of Michigan. During her college years, she spent a lot of time on Reddit, and the rising Bitcoin was the main topic of her discussion. However, in Soona's view at the time, the cryptocurrency industry was not mature enough, and she was worried that she would not be able to have a long-term career in this field. Therefore, after graduating from college in 2015, Soona chose to join Alation, a data intelligence solution provider, and became the company's 20th employee. At that time, Alation had just completed its Series A financing with the support of a16z, DCVC and other institutions, and was a very promising startup (last November, Alation raised $123 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion).
Soona continued to pay close attention to the crypto industry after she started working. At that time, people mainly got news from Reddit, Coindesk and Twitter, and the content and information were a bit messy, so she came up with the idea of ​​forming a vibrant, high-quality, and trustworthy community. In 2017, she co-founded the crypto community Token Daily, and gained more than 16,000 readers without any marketing. They also took the initiative to hold events with builders in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other vertical fields.
Over time, many projects began to contact her before launching, and some projects would seek feedback from her and the community on product strategy and relevant talents before raising funds, and seek help with distribution and dissemination through newsletters. Gradually, Token Daily's information network also made Soona's interpersonal network. She met many outstanding teams building potential projects in the crypto field and learned about the progress of the projects one step ahead of others. When she saw a large amount of money pouring into the crypto industry and many potential projects she knew were invested by investment institutions, she realized that she had an advantage in this regard. After a period of personal investment, Soona finally decided to start her own fund, Volt Capital, in 2019.
It is worth mentioning that the same year Volt Capital was founded, Lebanon experienced a financial crisis, with cumulative inflation reaching 4,667% as of August this year. Soona’s family in Lebanon lost a lot of assets as a result. Soona suggested that they convert the remaining assets into Bitcoin to protect themselves from further currency depreciation and currency controls, which also gave her a deeper understanding of the value of cryptocurrency.
Gain support from top institutions and investors
In April 2021, Soona Amhaz, who had just been successfully selected into Forbes' 30 under 30 in venture capital the previous year, announced that Volt Capital launched its first fund and raised $10 million for it. The fund was supported by well-known investors and investment institutions such as Web3 venture capital CMT Digital and former Coinbase CTO and a16z former general partner Balaji Srinivasan, Union Square Ventures managing partner Albert Wenger, and Founders Fund partner Brian Singerman. The funds raised will be used to invest in crypto data, infrastructure and DeFi startups.
In the first half of 2022, various investment institutions have officially announced the establishment of crypto funds, and even giants such as a16z have directly launched a crypto fund "CryptoFundIV" with a scale of up to US$4.5 billion. Volt Capital also announced in May that it had raised US$50 million for its second crypto fund and received support from a16z general partners Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon. Other supporters of the fund include Tiger Global, angel investor Elad Gil, hedge fund manager Brevan Howard and Albert Wenger. The fund is used to invest in crypto infrastructure, DeFi, NFT and DAO-related projects, and focuses on early Pre-seed, seed and A rounds of equity financing.
Volt Capital's portfolio at a glance
Corresponding to the time of launching the fund, most of Volt Capital's investments are concentrated in the first quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2022. Its most recent investment project is the Web3 security company Spearbit announced in August this year. The company completed US$7 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures; in addition, in May of this year, the cryptocurrency wallet as a service (WaaS) provider Magic announced that it had raised US$52 million in a strategic financing round led by PayPal Ventures. As the seed round investor of the project, Volt Capital participated again.
According to Volt Capital's official website and public information collected by PANews, Volt Capital has currently invested in at least 30 crypto projects. As mentioned above, its investment focuses on infrastructure and tools, NFT and digital asset tracks, including vertical segments such as crypto wallets, DeFi, infrastructure layer, software development, data storage, security and privacy. In addition to being the lead investor in the seed round of Yakoa, an NFT fraud detection startup, all other rounds of investment were follow-up investments.
The following is a brief introduction to Volt Capital's investment portfolio:
Infrastructure and Tools Nansen: Blockchain analysis platform, announced in October 2020 that it had completed a $1.2 million seed round of financing, led by Mechanism Capital and Skyfall Ventures, with participation from Robot Ventures and Fabric Ventures. Magic: Crypto Wallet as a Service (WaaS) provider, in June 2020, Magic announced that it had raised $4 million in a seed round of financing led by Placeholder, with participation from Lightspeed Ventures, Volt Capital, etc. In May 2023, it announced that it had raised $52 million in a strategic financing round led by PayPal Ventures, with participation from Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone and Volt Capital. Cashmere: Solana ecosystem enterprise wallet management company, completed a $3 million seed round of financing in August 2022, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Y Combinator, etc. Liquality: A multi-chain wallet, whose Liquality SDK aims to provide users with a seamless experience. In August 2021, it completed a $7 million financing, with participation from Hashed, Coinbase, etc. Thirdweb: A Web3 software development company, in May 2021, it announced the completion of a $5 million financing, with participation from Mark Cuban and Volt Capital founder Soona Amhaz. In August 2022, it completed another $24 million financing at a valuation of $160 million, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, etc. layerzero: A full-chain interoperability protocol Koop: A Web3 protocol focused on the creator economy, in August 2022, it announced the completion of a $5 million financing, led by 1confirmation and Variant Fund, with participation from DeFi Alliancel, etc. Penumbra Labs: A privacy layer network for the Cosmos ecosystem, in November 2021, it announced the completion of a $4.75 million seed round of financing, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Robot Ventures, etc. Spearbit: Web3 security company, announced in August 2023 that it had completed a $7 million financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Breed VC and Robot Ventures. Squads: DAO infrastructure project, announced in February 2022 that it had completed a $5 million strategic financing, led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Jump Capital, Delphi Digital, etc. KYVE: Decentralized data storage solution, completed a $1 million pre-seed round of financing in June 2021, with participation from the Solana Foundation, etc. Cozy Finance: A permissioned peer-to-peer protection solution so that users can invest in DeFi and prevent hackers, vulnerability exploits, etc., completed a $2 million seed round of financing in September 2020, with participation from Dragonfly, Electric Capital, etc.NFT Magic Eden: NFT trading platform Sound: decentralized music streaming platform Center: NFT tool company, products include NFT rendering API and multi-chain interoperability auxiliary tools Metahood: Metaverse startup, announced in January 2023 that it had completed a $3 million seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation, with participation from Neon DAO, The Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget and others. Pinata: A Web3 infrastructure provider focusing on NFTs, announced in August 2022 that it had completed $21.5 million in financing, including an $18 million Series A round and a $3.5 million seed round raised in 2021. The two rounds of financing were co-led by Greylock and Pantera, and co-led by Greylock and Offline Ventures, with participation from Volt Capital, OpenSea and Alchemy. MetaStreet: NFT mortgage lending liquidity provider, providing liquidity and expansion solutions for NFT mortgage platforms. In February 2022, it announced the completion of a $14 million financing, including $3 million in seed financing and $11 million in initial liquidity. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Ethereal Ventures, Sfermion, Nascent Capital, Delphi INFINFT, Alliance, etc. Yakoa: An NFT fraud detection startup, announced in November 2022 that it had completed a $4.8 million seed round of financing, led by Brevan Howard Digital, Volt Capital, and Collab+Currency. Recur: An NFT brand experience company, announced in April 2021 that it had completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by DeFi Alliance, with participation from IOSG Ventures, Delphi Digital, Volt Capital, etc. In September 2021, it announced the completion of a $50 million Series A financing at a valuation of $333 million, with Volt Capital participating again. Recently, RECUR announced that it will be completely closed on November 16, 2023. Digital asset slingshot: decentralized trading platform (formerly DEX.AG) Parsec Finance: DeFi and analysis platform, providing technical analysis for traders and data-focused users. It completed a $1.2 million seed round of financing in January 2021, with participation from Polychain and others. Giving Block: Crypto donation market, founded in 2018, was acquired by Shift4, a US-listed payment company, in March 2022, but has since maintained autonomy and operated independently. Coinshift: Fund management and infrastructure platform, providing financial management tools for DAOs and Web3 companies. It raised $2.5 million in a seed round of financing in October 2021. Investors include Sequoia Capital India, Fintech Collective, Consensys Mesh, Defi Alliance, and Volt Capital;In May 2022, it completed a $15 million Series A financing, led by Tiger Global, and participated again by Sequoia Capital India and Volt Capital. CoinLedger: Crypto tax reporting platform, completed $6 million financing in February 2022, with participation from CMT Digital and others. Parcel: An Indian startup that aims to help DAOs with financial management. It completed a $500,000 pre-seed round of financing in January 2021, with participation from Consensys and others. Others: Lines: Web3 social platform, announced in July 2022 that it had completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by former Twitter vice president Elad Gil, with participation from Scalar Capital and others. Merkle Manufactory: The developer of the decentralized social network protocol Farcaster, founded by former Coinbase executive Dan Romero, announced in July 2022 that it had completed a $30 million financing, led by a16z, with participation from 1confirmation, Scalar Capital, Coinbase Ventures and others. Matrix: Creates a cryptocurrency protocol for creators to gamify fan engagement and other digital brands, and completed a $470,000 pre-seed round of financing in June 2020. BAYZ: Web3 gaming guild, completed a $4 million financing in December 2021, led by Yield Guild Games and participated by BITKRAFT.