Sandeep Nailwal’s Cryptocurrency VC Fund Symbolic Capital Raises $50 Mn

• ByStartupStory     |    August 26, 2022

Symbolic Capital, a new crypto-focused venture capital firm led by Polygon blockchain inventor Sandeep Nailwal, has secured $50 million for a fund that will invest in early-stage Web3 firms, the latest in a flurry of new fund announcements in response to the crypto bear market. Among the Symbolic fund’s investors were several crypto industry participants, protocols, exchanges, auditing firms, and venture capitalists. Family offices and institutions have also contributed to the fund, which will make grants ranging from $500,000 to $1 million for each initiative.

Symbolic’s announcement comes just a week after Shima Capital announced a $200 million crypto fund and CoinFund announced a $300 million investment vehicle, indicating a significant increase in larger fundraising. In an interview, Symbolic partner Kenzi Wang said of the current market conditions, “It’s a builder’s time.” “There is less noise. We believe that now is the moment to invest in the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Wang, who co-founded the decentralized data cloud Cere, met Polygon’s Nailwal in 2019 while working at Binance Labs, and the two began investing together. According to Wang, Symbolic Capital was formed as a way for Web3 founders to invest in early-stage firms, similar to how billionaire Peter Thiel co-founded the Web2 Founders Fund in 2005. “We’re still in the dial-up stage of Web3, with insufficient user acceptance,” Wang remarked. “We want to give founders the ability to come in and build applications that attract more users into the Web3 spheres.”

According to Symbolic’s website, crypto verticals of interest include the Web2 to Web3 transformation; metaverse; the creator economy; blockchain interoperable and scaling solutions; as well as the commercialization of non-fungible token (NFT) technologies by brands. Half of the employees at Symbolic Capital are dedicated to providing operational support to founders. Legal issues, product integrations, internal audits, networking with other founders, and go-to-market operations are all covered. The company will also provide a data platform that scrapes and analyses sources such as GitHub repositories and LinkedIn to provide market trends and recruitment support to founders.

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