Bankless Ventures

Bankless Ventures (also referred to as BVC) is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in Web3 and crypto companies. It was launched in April 2023 by Bankless media co-founders Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman together with Ben Lakoff, CFA, who joined as a third General Partner and provides full-time leadership of the fund. The firm grew out of the founders' prior angel investing and advisory activity and is positioned alongside Bankless Media, a crypto media business the founders describe as a roughly 20-contributor operation.

The firm's stated focus is early-stage opportunities across the crypto stack, including decentralized finance, layer-1 and layer-2 networks, restaking, zero-knowledge proving technology, Bitcoin L2s and the intersection of crypto and AI. Fund I was kept deliberately small — under $40 million — with typical check sizes around $500,000, an approach the firm describes as allowing it to take meaningful positions in competitive early-stage rounds. In February 2025 the firm announced it had opened fundraising for Fund II with a $50 million target, and said an additional, then-unnamed investment partner would join the investment bench.

The published portfolio spans more than 40 companies and protocols, including 0G Labs, 0xBow, Aligned Layer, AltLayer, Aori, Astria, BOB, BounceBit, BSX, Chainbound, Clique, eOracle, Espresso, Ether.fi, Ethos, Fhenix, Frens, Gattaca, Gevulot, GridPlus, Hyperbolic, Init Capital, Ion, KelpDAO, Mode, Modulus, Moku, Monad, Mountain, Movement, MyShell, Nebra, Omega, Othentic, Phylax, Portals, Puffer, Renzo, Rome, Semantic, Spindl, StakeStone, Succinct, Swell and Tonk.

Founding story

David Hoffman has written that he floated the idea of a dedicated venture fund to Ryan Sean Adams in mid-2021, reasoning that their combined angel investing and advisory work already amounted to much of what a venture fund does. The pair decided to stay focused on scaling Bankless Media through the remainder of the bull market while preparing a fund aimed at bear-market opportunities. Hoffman met Ben Lakoff repeatedly on the conference circuit and, after discussions during a hike at Monserrate following DevCon in Bogotá, brought him in as the third General Partner, which moved the fund from concept to a firm closing its first raise. Bankless Ventures was publicly launched in April 2023, following a March 2023 CoinDesk report that the Bankless podcast hosts were raising an early-stage crypto venture fund.

Business model

The firm operates as a venture capital fund manager, raising capital from limited partners and deploying it into equity and token positions in early-stage crypto companies. Fund I was sized under $40 million; Fund II is being raised with a $50 million target. General Partners Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman state they are compensated solely through fund performance rather than salaries.

As a venture fund manager, returns are generated from the appreciation of early-stage portfolio positions; the firm reports interim performance to LPs in metrics such as MOIC and, prospectively, DPI.

Traction

Fund I was approximately 90% deployed as of February 2025 and reported 2.3x MOIC as of January 8, 2025. The published portfolio includes more than 40 companies and protocols such as Monad, Ether.fi, Espresso, AltLayer, Puffer, Renzo, Swell, Succinct, Mode and BounceBit. Third-party aggregation counts 54 invested projects.

Latest developments

On February 18, 2025 the firm opened fundraising for Fund II with a $50 million target and said an additional investment partner, unnamed at the time, would join to lead earlier-stage sourcing and led deals. The website subsequently lists Arnav Pagidyala as Investment Partner.