Lightspeed Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital firm, has launched a new ‘Crypto-Native’ team called ‘Lightspeed Faction’ to drive blockchain innovation.
The global venture capital firm said that Faction will be ‘dedicated to leveraging its nine-year history of supporting exceptional founders in blockchain infrastructure’. Lightspeed has been investing in blockchain and cryptocurrencies since March 2013.
The VC firm said that it has invested in some of the biggest blockchain companies over the past nine years and the launch of this new capital framework is a culmination of that journey.
Faction is a seasoned group of blockchain veterans collaborating with the global platform Lightspeed to meet blockchain and crypto founders across the globe. The new crypto division will be led by Sam Harrison and Banafsheh Fathieh.
Faction said in a press statement shared with AlexaBlockchain that the innovation economy is on the verge of a major computing paradigm shift with blockchain companies leading emerging use cases that will redefine both the underlying IT infrastructure and the industries they serve.
The Faction team is analyzing how blockchain companies can fundamentally change the way businesses are organized, how distributed computing systems are organized, and how economies and platforms operate – From FinTech to consumer, enterprise, healthcare, and others.
Loightspeed said that blockchain technology is changing how network participants are incentivized, how startups within this ecosystem are financed, and how communities can pool their shared power to create change.
In a joint statement, Sam Harrison, Managing Partner, and Banafsheh Fathieh, General Partner of the Lightspeed Faction, said:
“Blockchains have enabled new use cases that we believe will supplant notable legacy systems. Faction’s joint venture with Lightspeed combines a native crypto team with the Lightspeed platform company’s scaling expertise.”
Ravi Mhatre, a partner at Lightspeed, mentioned that cryptocurrencies can have a positive impact on a population of people who are unbanked or unbanked not only in the US but around the world.
“We believe the industry is still at an early stage in the transition from web2 to web3, and the collaboration between Lightspeed and Faction is a testament to our shared belief in the ways that cryptocurrencies can help build a better serving web to underserved people around the world,” Ravi added.
The VC firm said that Faction will position Lightspeed and its partners to serve the founding teams, technologies and trends that are accelerating the innovation economy.
The announcement comes amid the current bear market that has seen several cryptocurrency firms lay off staff, get liquidated, or get bailed out, and venture capital investment decline.
Additionaly, Lightspeed has closed its latest funding round, raising over $7 billion across four funds that focus on early- and growth-stage companies. This brings the total committed capital under management of Lightspeed to over $18 billion.
Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed has invested in over 500 companies globally, including leading blockchain and crypto firms such as Blockchain.com, FTX, Parallel Finance, LedgerX (acquired by FTX Exchange), and Yuga Labs.
To know more about Faction, its team, and Portfolio visit their official website https://www.faction.vc/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/FactionVC.
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