Crypto VC Firm Archetype Launches $100M Fund to Back Early Blockchain Startups

New York-based venture capital firm Archetype has raised $100 million for its third fund aimed at backing early-stage blockchain startups, the firm said.

The fund, called Archetype III, is supported by a mix of existing and new institutional investors, including pensions, academic endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and funds of funds.

“Running a concentrated $100M fund lets us be extremely selective and high-conviction with each team,” Ash Egan, founder and general partner of Archetype, told CoinDesk in an email. “We operate with a single goal — to ensure crypto teams are positioned to win by building deep rapport with founders in a way that mega funds structurally cannot.”

Archetype has a track record of early bets that paid off. Privy, a crypto wallet startup in its portfolio, was acquired by Stripe earlier this year.

Another investment, US Bitcoin Corp, completed a merger with Hut 8, a move that brought the company into a joint venture tied to Eric Trump’s American Bitcoin project.

The firm currently manages around $350 million in assets, including sizable stakes in Solana and Ethereum, according to the document.

While specific investments from the new fund haven’t been disclosed, Archetype said several deals have already been made. The firm plans to focus on founders building real-world use cases that could bring crypto to broader consumer markets.

Egan, commenting on potential barriers still holding back cryptocurrency adoption, told CoinDesk there’s “no silver bullet for mainstream crypto adoption, but the end game is to deliver products that are at parity with their Web2 alternatives while making them better aligned with users and creators.”

Still, he added, the firm works “shoulder to shoulder with our founders, we spend hours on end studying how new behaviour and technologies can be packaged into the best experiences for everyday users.”

UPDATE (Sept. 23, 2025, 19:17 UTC): This article has been updated with comments from Ash Egan, founder and general partner of Archetype.