The Stanford grad-led fund has deployed over $16 million to pioneering crypto projects, with the remaining capital set to be distributed over the course of 2025.
Blockchain Builders, a venture fund led by Stanford graduates that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage crypto projects, has announced the successful closure of its oversubscribed $28 million Fund I. The fund is set to invest in Stanford’s pioneering crypto community and exceptional founders from other top institutions. The fund will also be used to incubate frontier Web3 startups.
Blockchain Builders is led by experienced builders and operators with a passion for early ventures. Launched in 2017 by Stanford graduates – Gil Rosen, Kun Peng, and Steven Willinger – it aims to offer leading Web3 founders capital investments, hands-on support and mentoring to ensure the projects reach a global audience.
“Blockchain Builders was born from our firsthand experience scaling the Stanford blockchain ecosystem,” Co-founder Kun Peng said on the launch of Blockchain Builders.
Of the raised capital, over $16 million has already been deployed to 40+ blockchain ventures in several sectors, including AI, Infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), DePIN, Payments, and Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization. The remaining capital is set to be deployed to multiple projects preparing for TGEs by the end of 2025, the team statement confirmed.
Some of the notable portfolio companies set to benefit from capital raises include modular AI blockchain 0G (Hack VC, Bankless, Delphi Digital), supercomputer venture Nexus Labs (Lightspeed, Pantera, Dragonfly), open-access AI cloud Hyperbolic (Variant, Polychain, Topology), and blockless Layer-1 Pod (a16z, 1kx).
Speaking on the close ties to Stanford students and reasons for funding of top crypto projects, Co-Founder Gil Rosen stated:
“Our deep Stanford ties give us early access to high-potential founders who value our hands-on approach. We roll up our sleeves and dive into the details of strategy, GTM, and fundraising – positioning them optimally for competitive follow-on rounds led by tier-1 investors.”
Apart from the Blockchain Builders Fund, the team of Stanford graduates has also had a hand in several initiatives, including Stanford’s Blockchain Accelerator, BASS conference series, MS&E 447, as well as strategic partnerships with leading academic institutions to foster the next generation of Blockchain Builders.
“Stanford has an extensive history of blockchain research and innovation, including the Tse Lab that I run, the Centre for Blockchain Research, and coursework like my EE 374 course on blockchain infrastructure,” said David Tse, a professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Babylon protocol. “It’s also responsible for the BASS events and MS&E 447 entrepreneurship course, while the Stanford blockchain accelerator has helped further nurture its founder ecosystem and the number of blockchain startups launching.”
These initiatives have since supported over 200 founders, 400 students, and nearly 5000 cumulative attendees. The initiatives have provided them with a foundation to advance the development of their Web3 projects, while the Blockchain Builders’ team mentors new founders for success.
The Fund brings together several top professionals and personalities in traditional finance and crypto to help advance crypto projects’ development. The co-founders have previously worked and dealt with leading companies in the space, sharing their extensive knowledge with upcoming founders.
Willinger previously led Coinbase Ventures, invested at Capital One Ventures, and worked in product and partnerships at Blockstream and Google / Google X. Rosen, a prolific angel investor, bootstrapped a 100-employee venture, building distributed compute infrastructure for JPMorgan, London Stock Exchange, and the IRS; exiting to AI platform NGData. While Peng has extensive founder experience in web3 spanning crypto analytics and indexing, NFT, DeFi, and infrastructure.
In the future, Blockchain Builders is looking to launch the second phase (Fund II) of its venture fund. The upcoming phase will support the new C3-Cornell accelerator, which includes Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Yale, and UCL, and is collaborating on thought-leading events with the Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Starkware, BASE (Coinbase), and more, scaling its mission of supporting founders nationwide.
