Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher
As the crypto market overall declines, the assets under management (AUM) of almost all crypto VC firms are shrinking with it, and the industry is entering a brutal clearing cycle. But against this backdrop, a crypto venture capital fund established less than five years ago has become a clear exception, charting an independent growth trajectory amidst widespread contraction.
According to a batch of undisclosed financial disclosure documents from U.S. SEC obtained by a Fortune reporter last week, data shows that the AUM of leading firms like Paradigm, Pantera, a16z crypto, and Multicoin shrank across the board in 2025, with Multicoin's AUM shrinking by more than half.
The only one that grew against the trend was Haun Ventures, a venture capital fund established just four years ago. Its AUM grew from an initial $1 billion逐年 (year by year) to $2.5 billion in 2025.
In the bleak crypto market, this is by no means just luck. Last year, market news indicated that Haun Ventures was close to completing a new round of fundraising for a $1 billion fund. All of this reflects that Haun Ventures and its founder Katie Haun's unique investment strategy has passed the test of the market and LPs, propelling them into the ranks of top VCs.
Distinct Founder Style and Background
The difference of Haun Ventures was foreshadowed from the very start.
Founder Katie Haun is not a typical crypto investor. She was a long-serving federal prosecutor in the U.S., working on financial crime investigations for over a decade, and created the U.S. government's first cryptocurrency task force. In 2018, she became a16z's first female general partner and co-led the firm's cryptocurrency fund. She also joined the Coinbase board, thus combining policy vision, institutional resources, and practical experience.
This experience means her understanding of the crypto industry does not stem purely from "technological potential" or "market size," but rather from compliance boundaries, systemic risks, and institutional embedding capabilities. The influence of this background is not obvious, but it is profound enough.
It is worth noting that Haun Ventures is one of only two crypto funds named after their founder, reflecting the fund's distinct founder-driven style. The other VC named after its founder is a16z.
In its early days, Haun Ventures was not flawless and also stepped into pitfalls during market frenzies. Looking back at its investment record, Haun Ventures once focused heavily on NFT as a key investment area, investing in at least 4 NFT projects including Opensea, Autograph, ZORA, and Highlight in the first half of 2022 alone.
However, as the bubble for NFTs and similar concepts burst quickly, Haun Ventures demonstrated a strong ability to correct mistakes and iterate. From the second half of 2022 onwards, it rapidly contracted its efforts, significantly decreasing its investment frequency, responding to the market downturn with extreme prudence.
According to RootData, in the 18 months spanning the second half of 2022 and the entirety of 2023, Haun Ventures publicly disclosed participation in only 6 funding rounds, averaging one investment every three months.
As of June 2023, Haun Ventures partner Rosenblum stated in an interview that the firm's investments were almost evenly split between digital tokens and traditional equity, and that it had already deployed about 30% of its capital into roughly twenty-plus projects, including publicly traded, liquid tokens. These tokens included well-known cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as smaller market cap tokens related to projects.
At that time, Bitcoin's price hovered for a long time in the $15,000-$30,000 range, before subsequently rising to a high of $126,000 in 2025. This also brought Haun Ventures very substantial investment returns, largely offsetting the investment losses in areas like NFTs and becoming a crucial foundation for its growth in scale.
Key Shift
Starting in 2024, Haun Ventures' investment strategy began to show a clear shift, with its focus turning towards B2B solution companies in areas like payments and developer platforms.
At the time, these directions were not particularly 'sexy.' They lacked explosive growth narratives and were difficult to generate market hype in a short time, yet they恰好 (exactly) hit the key node of the industry's transition from speculation to utility.
In that year, Haun Ventures invested in nearly ten B2B companies, including the stablecoin payment platform Bridge, crypto-native infrastructure platform Conduit, crypto protocol economic security solution Chaos Labs, Solana development platform Helius, and crypto payment platform BVNK.
In terms of investment style, Haun Ventures particularly favors leading investment rounds. According to RootData statistics, among its publicly disclosed participation in 39 funding rounds, it led the round 22 times, with a lead investment rate exceeding 56%, ranking first among top-tier VCs. This demonstrates that Haun Ventures has an unusual level of conviction in its portfolio, willing to support high-potential early-stage projects with substantial capital.
Looking back now, payments have become the sector with the highest valuation premiums and the clearest exit paths in the crypto space. Haun Ventures' early布局 (layout/positioning), combined with its consistent lead investment style, has yielded very considerable exit returns.
Since October 2024, over 5 of Haun Ventures' portfolio companies have been acquired, with several payment companies achieving high-multiple returns. For example, Haun Ventures once led an investment in the stablecoin development platform Bridge at a $200 million valuation, and it was eventually acquired for a valuation exceeding $1.1 billion. Haun Ventures also led an investment in the crypto payment platform BVNK at a $750 million valuation, which was eventually acquired for a valuation exceeding $1.8 billion.
In an environment where crypto asset exit channels are increasingly narrow and secondary market liquidity is highly concentrated towards the top, Haun Ventures has proven the viability of another path: investing via equity in companies that solve real payment pain points and possess compatibility with traditional finance, achieving high-multiple exits through acquisitions, which is more capital-efficient than holding a pile of highly illiquid tokens.
From chasing the hot trend of NFTs, to a balanced allocation of tokens and equity, and then to focusing on B2B payments and infrastructure, the evolution path of Haun Ventures is precisely an epitome of crypto VCs shifting from speculation-oriented to value-oriented. Katie Haun's compliance experience, the fund's rapid error-correction ability, prudent investment pace, high lead-investment ratio heavy allocation strategy, combined with precise grasp of real-world applications and exit paths, together build a moat for weathering cycles.
As industry泡沫 (bubbles) recede, institutions that expanded依靠 (relying on) narratives and leverage are shrinking one after another. Haun Ventures, with compliance and stability as its foundation, has become the most certain winner in the crypto winter, also pointing out the survival and growth logic for the next phase of the entire VC industry.
