Ex-Bain investor launches $30M web3 client VC fund as solo feminine founder • TechCrunch

Magdalena “Mags” Kala, a self-described “lifetime degen,” isn’t any stranger to beating the chances. Earlier than she grew to become an investor, she co-founded an all-female blackjack crew that sought to use gender bias to make a revenue via gaming, she informed TechCrunch in an interview.

It’s becoming, then, that Kala was capable of elevate her first fund as a solo GP targeted on early-stage client startups within the web3 house in simply 4 months regardless of a broader downturn within the crypto market.

Her Miami, FL-based agency, Double Down, blew previous its preliminary fundraising goal of $20 million in a single month and closed its first fund with a complete of ~$30 million this week, based on Kala. The fund has already made 9 investments in web3 client startups,  together with Miami-based OnChain Studios, which makes Cryptoys, and Tally Labs, the corporate behind the Jenkins the Valet & Azurbala franchises.

Kala’s fundraise isn’t any small feat, particularly contemplating that girls are deeply underrepresented in enterprise capital, to not point out the added challenges that include elevating capital as a first-time fund supervisor in immediately’s depressed enterprise market. Ladies comprise lower than 15% of decision-makers at VC companies — a quantity that’s nearly definitely smaller within the crypto house, the place lower than 5% of entrepreneurs are ladies.

Her success in placing collectively this fund can also be, partly, a results of her deep background within the client house. She has been investing in consumer-facing corporations for a decade on behalf of Bain Capital and its co-chair, Steve Pagliuca’s, household workplace. Kala stated she determined to lift this fund as a “reluctant entrepreneur” after having conversations with buyers and founders in web3 who inspired her to leverage the comparatively area of interest intersection of her pursuits in client and crypto.

“I consider that the way forward for web3 is in client, and I acknowledge that one of many issues that I believe is limiting that’s really the shortage of fine storytelling and go-to-market methods round that, and speaking the worth to people who find themselves outdoors of the crypto OG, crypto-native buyer segments,” Kala stated. “To me, it felt like an ideal investor-market match, if you’ll … I assumed, nobody else in crypto was doing it, so I made a decision to launch the fund.”

Double Down’s backers embody crypto and enterprise heavyweights equivalent to Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen of a16z, Paradigm co-funders Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, Alexis Ohanian’s VC agency Seven Seven Six, and consumer-focused LPs equivalent to Paris Hilton and Sara Blakeley. Kala says her LP base is made up of ~30% feminine LPs and ~30% BIPOC LPs.

As a nod to web3 tradition, Kala says she is releasing the complete deck she used to lift this fund as a sequence of NFTs on OpenSea. She plans to airdrop pages to her LPs within the order by which they dedicated to the fund, beginning with Pagliuca, Dixon and Ohanian, she added. Double Down can also be launching a e-newsletter that may present recommendation on advertising and branding to startups in web3, Kala added.

“Shopper tradition is crucial for driving mainstream adoption of web3, and Mags brings a singular perspective as an skilled client investor, strategist, and marketer to put money into and assist the following technology of high web3 startups on their journey to mass impression and scale,” Ohanian informed TechCrunch in an e-mail.

Kala says she plans to collaborate with among the crypto-focused buyers who’re LPs of her fund on particular person offers. The small dimension of her fund, she defined, will enable her to concentrate on the particular strengths she brings to the desk moderately than compete with bigger companies.

To her buyers, Kala’s non-public fairness expertise is one such benefit, notably in immediately’s market.

“I’m used to doing actual diligence and being disciplined, and I believe with loads of LPs that has resonated,” Kala stated. “I’m not going to fly by the seat of my pants, particularly given market circumstances.”