Mark Cuban-backed 1Confirmation closes new $45M fund

1Confirmation, a crypto venture firm,  announced on Wednesday that it has closed a second fund at $45 million.

The firm had been aiming to close this fund at $60 million, but fell shy, having raised amid the bear market alongside rival venture firms like Pantera, which recently closed its DLT fund at $160 million. The news comes hot on the heels of Proof of Capital's $50 million raise, announced last month. 

Launched in August 2017 in San Francisco by former Coinbase employee Nick Tomaino, 1Confirmation's first fund closed at $26 million with contributions from Mark Cuban and other financial heavyweights like Peter Thiel, Chris Dixon, and Marc Andreessen. It was the second crypto-focused VC fund at the time, following only NYC-based Placeholder Capital, launching amid the bitcoin peak of 2017.

1Confirmation has so far deployed its funds over 17 publicly disclosed investments, including Coinbase, Harbor, and Veil [see full portfolio here]. Still, the firm had one notable casualty in its portfolio in 2018 in Basis, the now-defunct stablecoin, as The Block first reported. 

As for the investment focus of the new fund, Tomaino said in a blog post that they will stay connected with crypto-native users and avoid the "institutional aura" that most investment firms have. Earlier reports also suggest that the second fund will target early-stage projects by securing both equity and tokens. 

"Today, the current total market value of crypto assets is ~$223B and investment/speculation is the only mainstream use case. We think in the next five years, that total market value will surpass $1T as the investment/speculation use case continues to grow and other mainstream use cases emerge," Tomaino wrote.