Electric Capital appoints two new general partners

Crypto venture investment firm Electric Capital appointed two new general partners.

The firm — which has backed a wide range of crypto projects and companies, including dYdX, Kraken, and Bitwise — announced the promotions of Ken Deeter and Maria Shen to the roles of general partner on Friday. 

Engineers by background, Shen and Deeter join Avichal Garg, a former product management director at Facebook, and Curtis Spencer, previously an engineer at Facebook. The move comes amid a slowdown in venture capital activity in the crypto market and a broader slump in token prices. 

The promotion reflects Electric's focus on hiring engineering talent to lead investments in web3, the company told The Block. The firm takes a different approach to venture, which they view as being more purpose built for crypto and web3. The firm’s “business thesis” focuses on building technology — for internal and external purposes — rather than just building investment models.

"Engineering capability and technical contributions are essential to helping founders succeed on these new open platforms," the company said in a statement. "VCs will need expertise in areas such as liquidity provisioning, governance, code security, designing novel token mechanisms, and more. We are excited to welcome Ken and Maria as General Partners who exemplify our philosophy."

Deeter spent the last 20 years building teams at companies like VMare and Facebook. He currently leads the firm's liquidity provisioning and governance initiatives, while Maria invests in companies in the non-fungible token space and is the brainchild behind the firm's annual Developer report. 

In March 2022, Electric Capital closed a $ 1 billion raise for a fund to invest in tokens and back crypto startups, joining just a handful of other venture firms that raised billion-dollar-plus funds including a16z and Paradigm.