VanEck Unveils $30M Fund to Boost Fintech, Crypto, and AI Startups

The new venture fund targets early-stage innovators in digital assets, aiming to reshape payments and finance with blockchain and AI.

VanEck, a prominent global investment firm managing over $118 billion in assets, has launched VanEck Ventures, a $30 million venture capital fund aimed at supporting startups in the fintech, digital assets, and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors. This new initiative marks a significant expansion of VanEck’s role in nurturing emerging technologies that could transform financial services.

VanEck Ventures will focus on investing in early-stage companies, particularly those at the pre-seed and seed stages. The fund is led by Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez, two former executives from Circle Ventures, who bring substantial experience in identifying and backing promising startups. Since joining VanEck earlier this year, Lonergan and Lopez have worked behind the scenes to develop the fund’s investment strategy and make initial investments.

“We believe the convergence of blockchain, AI, and stablecoins is creating a new era for financial services,” Lonergan noted, emphasizing the potential for innovation in areas like tokenized assets and cross-border payments.

VanEck Ventures plans to allocate between $500,000 and $1 million per investment, targeting a total of 25 to 35 companies. The fund has already made four investments, although details remain under wraps, demonstrating its readiness to support transformative technologies quickly.

One of the fund’s key interests lies in the stablecoin sector, especially concerning its impact on cross-border payments. Lopez pointed to the $39 trillion global business-to-business cross-border payments market as ripe for disruption. He sees stablecoins, particularly those operating on efficient blockchains like Solana, as a means to streamline and enhance international transactions by overcoming the limitations of traditional payment systems.

VanEck Ventures’ formation builds upon the firm’s longstanding commitment to digital assets. VanEck was the first to file for a Bitcoin-linked ETF back in 2017, and it has remained at the forefront of crypto investment products ever since. This year, the firm achieved approval for both a spot Bitcoin ETF and a spot Ether ETF, positioning it as a leader in bridging traditional finance with the emerging world of digital assets.

The venture capital fund’s launch comes at a time when interest in the crypto space is steadily growing. Data from PitchBook indicates that crypto venture capital firms raised $2.2 billion in new capital as of August 2024, highlighting the strong investor appetite for early-stage opportunities in the digital assets sector.

The investment strategy for VanEck Ventures focuses on fostering innovations in tokenized capital markets, internet-native financial platforms, and next-generation payment systems using blockchain technology. Lonergan and Lopez are particularly interested in how AI can integrate with blockchain to create seamless, globally connected financial services.

VanEck Ventures will leverage the expertise and global reach of VanEck’s 400-member team. This collaborative approach aims to give the fund a competitive edge as it explores new possibilities in the evolving landscape of fintech and decentralized finance.

Reflecting on the firm’s trajectory, Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck, emphasized the company’s history of recognizing and seizing transformative opportunities, from pioneering gold investments in the 1960s to embracing Bitcoin in 2017. “With VanEck Ventures, we’re carrying that same vision forward, focusing on the early-stage innovators who are redefining the future of finance,” he said.

The fund’s launch signals a new chapter for VanEck as it moves to support startups that could shape the next generation of digital finance, potentially bridging the gap between traditional banking systems and decentralized technologies.

photo source / Blockonome