Lightspeed Faction launches $285m venture fund to support blockchain startups

Lightspeed Faction, a blockchain-focused venture capital firm, announced the launch of its inaugural $285 million venture fund. Faction will primarily invest in early stage blockchain projects and serve as a long-term capital partner as these projects scale. In addition to providing capital, the fund will serve as a seasoned resource to blockchain entrepreneurs on a range of topics from tokenomics to business scaling.

Faction offers founders access to a team of experienced blockchain investors and operators, servicing the industry at a time when many have fled. The team is primed to provide crypto-native advice, with team members hailing from Amber Group, Blockchain.com, and Coinbase, amongst others. 

Lightspeed Faction is a joint venture with Lightspeed Venture Partners, and as a result, combines Faction's crypto-only approach with Lightspeed's deep Silicon Valley roots and platform business scaling resources. Faction collaborates with Lightspeed on blockchain-related matters, but operates the fund independently. Faction is a separate partnership, with its own dedicated LP base and has full investment discretion over the $285 million of capital raised.

Banafsheh Fathieh, Co-founder and General Partner, Lightspeed Faction: "We are steadfast in our conviction that crypto is a generation-defining technology, and we are fully committed to investing behind the best entrepreneurs looking to propel blockchain technology forward. 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."

Faction engages with projects during their earliest stages, typically in Seed and Series A rounds, and invests in businesses that seek to provide positive societal impact using blockchain technology. Faction invests in the top teams and projects across all sectors of the blockchain industry, with a focus on using the technology to provide real utility to users and businesses. Faction has continued to invest throughout the bear market and already boasts an established track record of investments across the blockchain ecosystem, including investments in Crossmint, Lens, Narya.ai, Skip.money, Matter Labs, and more.

Faction's founding partners, Samuel Harrison and Banafsheh Fathieh, have deployed over $500M of capital across early-stage and blockchain venture capital throughout their careers. They have consistently invested through multiple crypto cycles with unwavering conviction, generating a long track record of backing the leading players in the space, including Aave, Arbitrum, Blockdaemon, Figure, Immutable, NEAR, Republic, Wintermute, and Matter Labs amongst others.

Samuel Harrison, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Lightspeed Faction: "We aim to be a collaborative partner from the start of the founder journey to exit. Building in blockchain is hard, but we went into the space because we see it as a great enabling technology, which can be used to achieve positive societal outcomes, such as enabling cheaper, more efficient financial services with the added benefit of greater transparency and unfettered access. We're particularly excited by net new behaviors and outcomes enabled by the unique properties of blockchain technology. We've been doing this for a long time and intend to be a dependable financing partner in the cycles yet to come."

www.faction.vc