Coinbase, a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, has revealed that its venture arm (Coinbase Ventures) increased capital investments by roughly 90% in 2021.
In a Q3 analytic report released on November 1, Coinbase has confirmed that its venture capital investments increased by roughly 90%, with a total of 49 new capital investments deployed in Q3 of 2021 so far. On average, Coinbase Ventures made a new deal almost every two days.
According to the new report, Coinbase Ventures increased its capital investments with 28 new deals from the previous quarter and 24 in the first quarter this year. As of Q3, the Coinbase Ventures portfolio size exceeded 200 organizations and investment projects.
Coinbase Ventures’ Growth Trend
It is worth noting that Coinbase’s venture capital investments remained unfazed during the market calm in the second quarter of this year. Despite the crypto market facing the FUD that left market price tumbling 50%, Ventures remained the busiest venue in the United States. On an accumulation basis, the platform deployed 90% of all capital investments in 2021.
This YTD growth rate shows increasing momentum of the organization before its fourth year of operation, since its inception in 2018. Also, the report cites that roughly 50% of the new unique “logos” in the portfolio have also emerged this year.
Among the most popular platforms invested by Coinbase Ventures include Compound Protocol, BlockFi, Dharma, OpenSea, Messari, CoinMetrics, EtherScan, CoinTracker, BisonTrails, UMA, Synthetic, Celo, to name a few. Cumulatively, Coinbase Ventures has already backed over 150 companies so far.
Coinbase Ventures Not A Convectional Firm
In relatively short contrast, Coinbase Ventures impressively outperforms similar traditional investment firms such as Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. Moreover, Coinbase Ventures is not a complete company since it does not have any fixed fund size or full-time employees like other Ventures Capitalists (VC).
Coinbase does not source capital investments from any specific fund. Instead, those investments are mainly residues from its balance sheet. In a past interview with Forbes, Coinbase president and COO Emilie Cho insisted that this type of investment protocol reflects the future of decentralized finance, adding:
“I’ve got to imagine we’re the only ones doing it this way. It’s almost like our little hidden secret.”
Due to its unconventional nature, the company does not take board seats but tends to prefer joining funding rounds led by other Venture Capitalist [VC] companies.
