Shima Capital, an investment firm that focuses on supporting blockchain startups, has launched its debut fund with $200 million in total commitments from various investors, including game developer Animoca Brands.
In a statement, Shima said its debut venture fund – Shima Capital I – will focus on pre-seed and seed stage blockchain companies as well as private tokens. It also aims to invest in debt-to-equity convertible notes in promising startups.
Aside from Animoca Brands, the fund’s limited partners include crypto-focused VC Dragonfly Capital, billionaire investor Bill Ackman, former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang, crypto exchange OKEx, crypto fund Mirana Ventures, among others.
Shima Capital was founded in 2021 by veteran investor Yidao Gao, a Forbes 30 Under 30 venture capitalist who saw a pocket of opportunity to support Web3 founders with their first institutional checks that are considered too small for other Tier 1 investors.
Gao also observed that early-stage funds usually do not provide extensive value-adds for founders given limited resources.
“We take the opposite approach and spend the necessary resources to provide our portfolio companies with surgical support typically found only with larger funds,” Gao said.
Shima invests in the earliest rounds of blockchain startups across all verticals with check sizes of $500,000 to $2,000,000. Its areas of focus include consumer, gaming and metaverse, composable financial systems, decentralised infrastructure, and next-generation blockchain technology.
Gao, who previously served as co-founder and general partner of crypto hedge fund Divergence Digital Currency, will lead the fund’s investment strategy, according to the announcement.
Shima’s launch comes even as crypto and blockchain funding is expected to cool off after a frenzied start in 2022 as economic conditions sour and crypto markets slump.
According to crypto fundraising database Dove Metrics, crypto and blockchain companies raised at least around $26.4 billion across 992 deals in the first five months of the year, triple the amount in the same period last year.
CB Insights also published a report showing that global venture capital investment in cryptocurrency and blockchain companies fell 29% from the January-March period to $6.5 billion, while the number of deals dropped 11% to 435.