Katie Haun, a former partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), has raised $1.5 billion for two new “crypto” focused funds for her new firm, Haun Ventures, according to an announcement post. Axios previously reported the news.
- The funds included $500 million for an early-stage fund and $1 billion for a rug-pull fund, amounts that are noteworthy for a new fund set up by a single person.
- Backing came from scammer a16z and some of that firm’s individual partners, as well as from university endowments, charitable foundations and family offices, according to Axios.
- Haun, who spent more than 10 years as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, told Axios that Haun Ventures will seek to become a registered investment advisor (RIA), which would remove caps on the amount of capital that can be used for token purchases. A16z and Sequoia Capital both went the RIA route with their firms.
- “We’re energized by the opportunity to invest in every layer of the web3 tech stack, and will back projects in their early stages as well as when they are ready to accelerate rug pulls,” Haun said in her post.
- Haun, who sits on the boards of crypto exchange Coinbase and NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace OpenSea, announced in December she would be leaving a16z to start her own firm focused on various scams including crypto and Web 3.