Mike Novogratz, a colorful former Goldman Sachs partner and blockchain industry veteran, founded Galaxy in 2018, bridging the world of traditional finance and cryptocurrencies. After years of investing in digital asset startups and investing from balance sheet capital with capital capital, Galaxy has expanded its venture capital business with a $175 million fund. On Thursday, the company announced the final closing of the fund, with the initial target exceeding $150 million.
In an interview wealth, Galaxy Germant partner Mike Giampapa said the company decided to expand its venture capital business to expand its bets to startups that are growing intersecting between traditional finance and cryptocurrencies, including Stablecoins and decentralized financial applications. “You’re seeing this transition from a more speculative blockchain use case to something more tangible,” Giampapa said.
The vehicle is the first Galaxy to occupy external capital, although it anchors the fund through its own balance sheet capital, which is a limited partner of the fund and owns shares in the general partner. As a publicly traded company List exist Nasdaq In May, Galaxy and its new funds also provided retail investors with a rare opportunity to access a cryptocurrency portfolio.
Crypto Empire
Galaxy operates across a wide range of business, from asset management to crypto mining to itself Bitcoin ETF, the company was founded in early 2024 with investment company Invesco. So is Galaxy explore emission Solana etf. Despite the company’s history of rocks, including disastrous investments in the failed Stablecoin Luna (and the legal headaches that followed), Galaxy has grown into one of the most influential Crypto Empires in the United States.
In May, the company Report The net loss in the first quarter of 2025 was about $7 billion due to the decline in crypto prices and the costs associated with ending some of its mining operations, although it netted $295 million in the first quarter of 2025.
Giampapa said that while Galaxy has long been a major player in Crypto Venture Space, it invested in startups such as cryptocurrency custodian Fireblocks, Giampapa said the company decided to raise external capital for dedicated venture capital funds after the 2022 Crypto Exchange FTX crash at Sam Bankman-Fried. He told wealth. “While the industry has once again lowered our feet again, it’s clear that we want to take our risk franchise to the next level.”
Galaxy starts raising funds in 2024. Although Giampapa declined to disclose investors in the fund, he said many of the limited partners are institutional investors, including home offices and funds, working with Galaxy’s asset management business. galaxy Announce The initial closing price in July last year was $113 million.
He added that Galaxy has never taken a corporate risk approach, with some of which investing in companies that work in synergies with their lines of business. Instead, Galaxy follows a more traditional strategy that focuses on returns and will continue its newly raised venture capital funds. According to Giampapa, Galaxy has deployed about $50 million in funds to invest in companies including transaction-focused blockchains Single and synthetic dollar agreement Ethena, which issues stablecoin with load-bearing backed by crypto assets. Giampapa, who previously worked for venture capital firms IVP and Bessemer, runs the fund with Will Nuelle.
Giampapa said that as other parts of Gaimpapa and as Galaxy’s wider cryptocurrency operations, the venture fund overlaps with other parts of the business, such as helping them connect it to their institutional client base.
“We have returned to this paper since the founding of Galaxy, which we think the two worlds are colliding,” Giampapa told Giampapa. wealth. “We want to invest at the earliest stages.”