Stanford-backed Blockchain Builders VCs Launch $28 Million Fund

Blockchain Builders, a pre-seed and seed-stage fund investing in Stanford’s pioneering crypto community and founders, announces the conclusion of its Fund I fundraising effort. In total, the team secured $28 million in funding to fuel a new cohort of developers in Web3 and beyond.

Blockchain Builders announces oversubscribed $28 million Fund I

Blockchain Builders, a massive VC initiative of Stanford alums, completes its Fund I fundraising effort. With a total of $28 million raised, the funding ended up with oversubscription, the team's statement says. 

Initially launched by Stanford graduate students Gil Rosen, Kun Peng and Steven Willinger, the fund has already deployed over $16 million in 40 blockchain ventures, spanning AI, Infrastructure, Defi, DePIN, Payments and RWAs.

Notable portfolio companies include modular AI blockchain 0G (Hack VC, Bankless, Delphi Digital), supercomputer venture Nexus Labs (Lightspeed, Pantera, Dragonfly), open-access AI cloud Hyperbolic (Variant, Polychain, Topology) and blockless Layer-1 Pod (a16z, 1kx).

Blockchain Builders cofounder Kun Peng highlights that the fund is deeply routed into Stanford's blockchain ecosystem:

We started Stanford’s Blockchain Accelerator, teach MS&E 447 Blockchain Entrepreneurship, and produce the Blockchain Application Stanford Summit (BASS) conference series - these initiatives have supported over 200 founders, 400 students, and nearly 5000 cumulative attendees, and provide a deep network to inspire, support, and mentor new founders for success.

The fund’s leadership brings extensive experience across traditional finance and crypto. Steven Willinger previously led Coinbase Ventures, invested in Capital One Ventures and worked in product and partnerships at Blockstream and Google/Google X. 

Gil Rosen, a prolific angel investor, bootstrapped a 100-employee venture, building distributed compute infrastructure for JPMorgan and the London Stock Exchange.

Fund II will onboard more accelerators in U.S.

As it looks ahead to Fund II, the team is expanding its support to the new IC3-Cornell accelerator, which includes Berkeley, Carnegie Melon, Princeton, Yale and UCL. 

The fund is also collaborating on thought-leading events with the Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Starkware, Coinbase and more; scaling its mission of supporting founders nationwide.

Blockchain Builders is focused on every detail of its incubees' strategy, GTM and fundraising, positioning them optimally for competitive follow-on rounds led by tier-1 investors.