Portal Ventures

Portal Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in crypto, blockchain and Web3 businesses, concentrating on leading first checks into pre-seed companies before product-market fit. The firm positions itself as a thought partner to founders on business model design, go-to-market and fundraising, and describes a research- and thesis-driven sourcing process aimed at identifying sectors six to twelve months before they attract wider attention. It has published research on areas including Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), decentralized data storage/DePIN, the intersection of AI and Web3, and a "Bitcoin Renaissance" thesis.

The firm was founded in 2022 by Evan Fisher, previously an investor at Insight Partners and earlier in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs. Catrina Wang is General Partner, having previously operated at Protocol Labs and Apple, invested at Hivemind Capital, and been among the founding members of Deloitte Consulting's blockchain program in 2017; Evan Solomon serves as Chief of Staff. Portal operates what it calls a "full-stack GP model," in which the general partners handle research, investment and post-investment support directly, including help refining go-to-market approach in the first 60-90 days after funding. The firm states a practice of backing only one company per category.

Disclosed portfolio companies include Arch Network (Bitcoin-native lending and building), Concrete (institutional onchain yield infrastructure), Exabits (GPU compute for AI), Interval (verifiable AI for enterprise data), Plume (onchain real-world assets), Quip (quantum computing), Uranium Digital (institutional exchange for physical uranium), Vest (24/7 perpetual trading on equities, crypto and FX), Blueprint and Rome Protocol.

Founding story

Evan Fisher and Catrina Wang each encountered blockchain while working at traditional institutions -- Fisher at Goldman Sachs and Insight Partners, Wang at Deloitte, where she co-founded the firm's blockchain venture program. Fisher concluded that Insight's multibillion-dollar asset base made small token deals impractical for it, and instead persuaded several Insight managing directors and portfolio company founders to back a new firm, founding Portal in 2022.

Business model

Portal Ventures manages closed-end venture funds on behalf of limited partners, deploying capital into equity and token positions in early-stage crypto and blockchain companies and providing hands-on support from the general partners. Reported limited partners include a16z's Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen through a shared family office, KKR's Henry Kravis, managing directors from Insight Partners, and the funds of funds Accolade; roughly half of its LPs are described as having a crypto background.

As a venture fund manager, the firm's economics derive from management of committed limited partner capital and returns on its portfolio positions; check sizes have been characterized in the $1M-$10M range by a third-party directory.

Traction

Portal closed a first fund of $40 million in early 2022, which was fully deployed as of May 2024, with distributions expected to begin the following year; most of that fund was invested during the 2023 downturn. Its second fund closed at $75 million in November 2024 after being oversubscribed to $90 million, bringing reported assets under management to approximately $115 million.

Latest developments

Following the November 2024 close of its $75 million second fund, Portal has continued to lead pre-seed rounds in areas including institutional onchain yield, AI compute, real-world assets, quantum computing and tokenized commodities such as uranium, and its partners have continued publishing research through 2025 and 2026.