Dispersion Capital launches $40 million fund focused on decentralized infrastructure

In the depths of the crypto winter, the debut of major venture capital funds is rare, a far cry from previous years. But the freeze isn’t stopping some venture capitalists from launching new funds targeting the decentralized technology market.

Dispersion Capital has raised an initial $40 million fund to invest in decentralized infrastructure, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The venture capital vehicle is backed by Web 2.0 and Web3 entities including WeNade, Circle Ventures, Ripple, Alchemy Ventures, NGC, and individual general partners. It will focus on deploying capital in pre-seed and seed rounds, and has already deployed 10% of the fund.

The evolution of blockchain infrastructure technology has been slow, said Patrick Chang, founder and managing partner of Dispersion Capital. “We think there is so much more to build.”

Blockchains and distributed computing are still very new, Chang added, saying they still have “a lot of missing pieces.” According to him, the existing blockchain infrastructure technology was built bit by bit, which new development work that brings web2.0 “know-how” to web3 could help harmonize.

During the 2021 crypto bull market, many startups were founded to build NFT projects, decentralized finance protocols and more, but few tech start-ups focused on the underlying infrastructure. herself, Chang said. “What was frustrating for users and people coming into web3 was the integration, scalability and hacks. The infrastructure was incredibly immature and people weren’t thinking about it.

Fast forward to today and there is a plethora of startups and developers working to improve the Web3 infrastructure.

Dispersion plans to deploy its fund to startups that want to help integrate new crypto users with technologies like refreshed data infrastructure, cybersecurity and smart contracts.

Although primarily focused on US-based companies, Dispersion also actively invests in other regions, Chang explained. About a quarter of its active investments are based in Israel, but the company is also looking for builders based in Asia, given the proliferation of developments for ZK, or zero-knowledge technology, in that region, Chang noted.

“The mission for us is how to bring Web3 to a level similar to cloud computing, that is, an invisible technology that not everyone realizes they are using, but are using,” said Chang said. “Long term, the focus is on how we bring Web3 to the masses and [to] one billion users.