BlockTower Capital's venture unit has officially spun out as an independent firm, launching as Strobe Ventures with $235 million in assets under management (AUM) and plans to raise $100 million for its second fund.
The spinout follows BlockTower's merger announcement with Arca in November 2024, which outlined plans to unify their liquid trading and credit underwriting units under a single brand. However, BlockTower's venture capital unit chose to remain independent and is now rebranding as Strobe Ventures while retaining BlockTower's VC unit's capital, limited partners (LPs), portfolio and team.
"The spinout is motivated by a strategic decision to remain small, focused, and contrarian, versus the trends of multi hundred million dollar to multi billion dollar funds and fast deployment in web3 venture, which matches the fund's strategy and deployment to date, and was supported by the fund's LPs," Thomas Klocanas, CEO and managing partner at Strobe Ventures and former general partner and head of venture at BlockTower Capital, told The Block.
Klocanas leads Strobe Ventures alongside former BlockTower colleagues Steven Venino and Winnie Lau. BlockTower co-founders Ari Paul and Matthew Goetz will also continue as venture partners. Strobe's other venture partners include Kevin Miao and Kevin Chan (both formerly of BlockTower Credit and now at open finance platform Steakhouse Financial), among others.
Fund I status and plans for Fund II
BlockTower's first venture fund, a $150 million vehicle launched in 2022, was backed by investors including MassMutual, Bpifrance and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. The fund has since grown to $235 million AUM, now under Strobe Ventures, with a portfolio that includes Ethena, Morpho, Aptos and Maple Finance.
Strobe is still deploying from its first fund and has already made three investments since spinning out. This includes a position in Clanker, an AI-driven token creation bot on the Base blockchain, along with two undisclosed private round investments.
"We expect to make about 10 more investments this year, with an average check size of around $3 million per startup," Klocanas said.
Once Fund I is nearly fully deployed, Strobe plans to raise a second fund, targeting $100 million in the coming weeks. Klocanas emphasized that Strobe plans to remain small, contrarian and focused on pre-seed to Series A investments, prioritizing a "high-conviction," low-velocity approach over rapid capital deployment.
Strobe will continue supporting entrepreneurs "building real-world use cases, leveraging crypto rails and primitives to redefine financial and consumer experiences from the ground up," Klocanas said.
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