More Institutional Investors Embrace Crypto VCs as Pantera Capital Raises $600 Million

Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and other institutional sources of capital used to shy away from cryptocurrencies over concerns about their use in illicit activity. Those reservations increasingly seem to be dissipating.

The latest example comes from Pantera Capital, one of the first investment firms to focus exclusively on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The firm, led by Tiger Management alum Dan Morehead, has raised $600 million for its fourth venture fund, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Roughly 75% of the capital for the new fund is from institutional sources such as endowments, this person said. That’s a change from the firm’s $175 million vehicle raised in 2018, which was funded mainly by individuals, including newly wealthy crypto investors.