Nic Carter's Castle Island Ventures Backs New Crypto VC Firm

Breed VC, a new crypto-focused firm, has closed fundraising for its first fund and brought in a “considerable portion” of its $20 million target, founder and general partner Jed Breed told CoinDesk during an interview. The fund was backed by Nic Carter and Matt Walsh's Castle Island Ventures, Tribe Capital and Shima Capital, among others.

The venture capital firm closed the fund at the beginning of the year, meaning the fundraise happened during the severe turbulence following the implosion of crypto exchange giant FTX.

“I’ve known Jed since 2018 when we met in the Boston crypto scene. I’m backing him because he has a great track record as an investor, is very crypto-native and has an excellent network in the space,” said Castle Island Ventures general partner Carter in an emailed statement. “I launched my first fund in a bear market and know how hard it is to raise during times like this. However, these tend to be the best times to deploy. I have complete confidence in him and am proud to make him my first LP [limited partner] check.”

Breed VC will focus on pre-seed and seed funding rounds. Verticals of interest include decentralized finance (DeFi), consumer-focused decentralized applications (dapps), non-fungible token (NFT) infrastructure and blockchain scaling solutions.

"Our midterm thesis is following closely for the next breakout application in crypto. Long term, as scaling and UX improve we feel every interaction on the internet will be built on crypto rails. Crypto is here to stay and we plan to take an active part in helping builders create the future,” said Breed.

Jed Breed started his crypto career as a bitcoin miner before moving on to Circle, where he headed digital assets and helped launch the USDC stablecoin. He then moved on to run the DeFi efforts at institutional hedge fund Arena Capital, cutting his investment teeth as an angel investor.

Breed VC has already made its first deal with a portfolio company, a zero-knowledge borrow/lend platform that has yet to officially announce its details. In addition to financial backing, Breed VC will offer operational support to companies. The smaller size of the fund lends well to one-on-one support, noted Breed, who can also tap his broad crypto network for help on anything from tokenomics design to relationship building,

Read more: VC Firm Pantera's 2023 Crypto Forecast Says the Future Is DeFi