Robert Leshner's Robot Ventures raises $4M, brings on Tarun Chitra

Robot Ventures, the crypto seed investor, is setting up a second fund — and it's bagged $4 million and a partnership with a D.E. Shaw alum to do it.

The original fund was self-managed by Leshner, but for its sequel, he's bringing on Gauntlet founder and CEO Tarun Chitra as a partner. It's already garnered $4 million in a raise, with half coming from Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz, according to Chitra.

Robot Ventures II has not filed any forms with the SEC outside its initial registration, according to Sec.Report, a site that tracks such registrations.

Chitra spent the early days of his career doing quantitative research and development at D.E. Shaw Research and Vatic Labs. Since 2018 he's run his own company, Gauntlet, which creates tools for crypto developers that allows them to forecast risk related to their projects. Gauntlet is backed by Coinbase and Polychain, among others.

The initial Robot Ventures already has projects like Compound, InstaDapp, and Ampleforth in its portfolio.

Editor's Note: This report has been updated to more clearly reflect its sourcing.