Pantera to close Blockchain Fund soon after raising $1.3B — double the target

cointelegraph.com:

Crypto hedge fund giant Pantera Capital is set to close a blockchain fund next month that is backed by around $1.3 billion worth of capital.

The Pantera Blockchain Fund was announced in May last year, with plans to raise $600 million to invest in early-stage tokens, venture equity, Web3 firms and tokens with strong liquidity. It has since surpassed that target significantly, with the firm revealing last month that the fund had topped $1 billion.

The latest $1.3 billion figure was noted during an April 12 investor conference call regarding the company’s new $200 million Pantera Select Fund that will back “growth stage” crypto firms that are ready to generate revenue, as opposed to firms in early funding stages that being sought out via the Blockchain Fund.

While a specific closing date for the fund wasn’t detailed, Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead suggested it could be in early May:

Moving forward, Morehead also noted that the company will then shift its focus to closing the Blockchain Fund II 2023, which will “essentially be the same” as the former variation of the fund and look to obtain further deals in the “early-stage private token space, and new deals in the early venture space.”

“We will come back with a larger and more diversified and probably longer investment period growth-stage fund, in say 2024,” Morehead added.

The Pantera Select Fund is also expected to close in early May with around $200 million worth of capital. The firm stated that the fund will be used to support and scale companies that are already open for business:

Pantera stated that the fund will invest in firms across multiple crypto sectors such as blockchain infrastructure, nonfungible token (NFT) platforms, Web3 gaming, the Metaverse, exchanges