Two Sigma Ventures Raises $400M for Two Funds, Plans Crypto Investments

Two Sigma Ventures announced plans on Wednesday to invest $4000 million across two new venture capital funds, confirming to CoinDesk that crypto investments will be included.

The early-stage focused Two Sigma Ventures IV fund and growth-stage Opportunity Fund will invest across a number of industries, including enterprise software, financial technology and consumer technology. The company doesn’t have a dedicated crypto fund, but about 15% of its capital will go toward crypto and Web3 projects, Two Sigma partner Dan Abelon told CoinDesk during an interview.

Venture capital investments in the first half of 2022 fell 26% year-over-year as the Ukraine conflict, the collapse of Terra’s stablecoin and the liquidity challenges of crypto lender Celsius gave way to a bear market. The number of deals remained stable, suggesting that investors continued to pour into the space but were backing smaller deals.

Two Sigma Ventures is the venture capital arm of New York-based quant hedge fund Two Sigma, which has about $60 billion in assets under management. The combination drives a focus on startups utilizing data science and software, making crypto a natural investment fit.

“Decentralized finance as a whole is a category that we emphasize and focus on for a number of reasons,» explained partner Andy Kangpan. «One of them is our affiliation with the broader Two Sigma organization … There’s very significant, deep financial market expertise that we can tap into to help us think through how crypto can change how financial services operate.”

Other crypto verticals of interest include developer tooling and infrastructure projects, said Kangpan.

Approximately 85% of the capital for the new funds came from external investors, primarily institutional players such as college endowments, non-profit foundations and pension funds. The remainder came from Two Sigma partners and senior employees.

Two Sigma funds typically cut checks of about $8 million to $12 million for a Series A round, but there’s flexibility in the size, said Abelon, particularly for crypto investments.

“We have to be sensitive that this is a challenging time to be a founder. It’s tough to raise money in certain fields,” said Abelon. “From a long-term perspective, it’s a great time to be a founder and a great time to be an investor. It feels like we continue to be on the cusp of the digitization of society and solving lots of big problems with software and data.”

Read more: Crypto-Focused Venture Firm Bloccelerate Is Raising $100M for Second Fund

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