gCC Fund II will target 50 or so exceptional global startups at the earliest stages in areas such as Infrastructure, Developer Tools, Gaming, DeFi, Metaverse, DAOs and guilds and Web3 Applications
gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC), the leading blockchain-focused venture capital firm, announced the completion of raising its second blockchain-focused early-stage fund on the strength of the performance of its initial $21 million USD gCC Fund I that backed seed stage founders.
“We live in the Experimental Age. The existing institutions and infrastructure including social infrastructure, governance, financial services and big tech are demonstrably failing us. Because the way forward is unknown, there’s a strong appetite for experimentation”
With 36 portfolio companies, gCC Fund I has already backed many of the strongest entrepreneurs in the space including leading the strategic seed round of NFT Marketplace OpenSea and placing a seed investment into Yield Guild Gaming. gCC Fund I has many strong early-stage investments in portfolio including unicorns like Celsius Network, Qredo, Agoric, Astar, 1inch, VEGA protocol and more.
Rui Zhang, Managing Partner, said: “Think of us as blockchain’s experienced, high-conviction, high trust, hands-on value adding, long time preference, unicorn to megacorn, builder-focused all-in venture society.”
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gCC anticipates the rise of the Experimental Age
“We live in the Experimental Age. The existing institutions and infrastructure including social infrastructure, governance, financial services and big tech are demonstrably failing us. Because the way forward is unknown, there’s a strong appetite for experimentation,” said Miko Matsumura, gCC Managing Partner. “Tokens represent monetary experimentation powering Web3, DAOs and guilds are governance experiments. Avatars represent ‘personality experiments’ whether backed by individuals, bots or groups. NFTs are experimental digital assets. The Metaverse is a collection of experimental realities.”
Fund II will target exceptional developers, projects, DAOs, guilds, apps, games, and protocols at any layer at the earliest stage and is chain-agnostic. Fund II will invest in both equity and tokens. gCC expects to invest between $500,000 to $5 million per project through both initial and follow-on investments.
Rui Zhang, added: “Our approach for this fund will be ‘thinking ahead’. We develop advanced thinking across the blockchain space. We’re looking for exceptional ‘gumicorn’ founders in advanced subsectors that have the potential to be sector leaders and disrupt global industries.”
World-class team
gumi Cryptos Capital Fund II will be led by a world-class team of experienced investor operators: Managing Partners, Hironao Kunimitsu, Rui Zhang, and Miko Matsumura. All three partners have founded and exited companies via M&A or IPO.
Portfolio leadership teams will also have access to gumi Crypto Capital’s exceptional global network of portfolio company founders, legal and financial advisors, token economy designers, token liquidity and market making partners and global investor base. gCC has a unique geographic footprint straddling with headquarters in both San Francisco and Tokyo.
Hironao Kunimitsu, Managing Partner at gCC, said: “We have unique access to both Silicon Valley startup culture and capital markets as well as access to the Japan market. Japan is also home to unique intellectual property assets especially in the fast-growing gaming sector. With our unique geographic advantage, we can help ambitious projects grow faster.”
Building on momentum
This fund follows gCC’s launch of gCC’s record breaking performance on its Fund I. gCC Fund I is above the top 1% of all Venture Capital Funds by performance according to data from Angel List. In addition, companies in the gCC portfolio have themselves raised more than $1bn since January 2020 to fuel growth.
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