Crypto Venture Company Dragonfly Buys Hedge Fund, Rebrands

(Bloomberg) -- Digital-asset venture capital firm Dragonfly said it acquired MetaStable Capital, one of the oldest investment funds in cryptocurrencies, and completed a rebranding.

The acquisition comes as the digital-asset industry consolidates, said Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Dragonfly added the firm has dropped “Capital” in its name under a new logo. 

“The bear market has caused a lot of traditional funds and crossover funds to exit the crypto market,” Qureshi, a former partner at MetaStable, said in a Telegram message. “We're the opposite: we're going deeper, and committing to our crypto-native roots.”

The crypto market has begun finding its feet after a painful rout spurred by tightening monetary policy that led to spectacular leveraged blowups. Mergers and acquisitions are climbing as part of that shakeout. 

For instance, crypto exchange Huobi's founder Leon Li is looking to sell his majority stake in the business. Digital currency platform Crypto.com recently announced acquisitions in South Korea.

MetaStable, co-founded by Naval Ravikant in 2014, had over $400 million of assets under management as of July 31. The fund was an early investor in many well-known digital-asset projects such as the Ethereum blockchain. It was backed by venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Union Square Ventures and Founders Fund.

“Dragonfly is a lot bigger now than when it first started, and so is the crypto industry,” Qureshi said. “The traditional VCs will be back eventually, but the space will have moved on even further by then, and so will we.” 

Dragonfly's regulatory assets under management were more than $3 billion, according to the latest public records. Its new brand represents the firm's “cyberpunk, hacker-first roots,” general partner Tom Schmidt said in a statement.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.