Almost two years in the past, Katie Haun left Andreessen Horowitz and raised two crypto funds totaling $1.5 billion. After which… a crypto market disaster occurred. At crypto-news Disrupt, she appeared again at what occurred over the previous couple of years and confirmed that she’s nonetheless very optimistic about the way forward for crypto.
When Katie Haun was a normal associate at a16z, bitcoin was buying and selling at $65,000, Sam Bankman-Fried was nonetheless on the helm of FTX. And Haun agrees that issues these issues set the house again significantly. Nevertheless it’s not a nasty time to be a crypto investor.
“I feel there’s a notion on the market that crypto is crickets chirping. We discover ourselves very busy, however one of many issues we did do is we noticed this market correction, and we very purposely waited to make some deployments,” Katie Haun stated. “So I do know that is going to sound a little bit odd, however we really feel truly it’s a extremely good time to be investing within the house throughout this time.”
Based on her, there are a number of misconceptions about Haun Ventures. “I feel one other misperception is ‘oh, wow, you raised it throughout a excessive market, nice timing, peak.’ Truly, that was not the case,” Haun stated. “It was not a stroll within the park. Primary, crypto market cap had dropped 40% from its peak.”
“The opposite factor is notion of our fund is we’re one big, huge $1.5 billion fund, and we’re not. We’ve two funds. We’ve an early stage fund, $500 million. We do A, B and C. After which we have now an acceleration fund, which backs all types of later stage tasks in crypto.”
Relating to the bigger fund, Haun Ventures lately closed two offers with out asserting them in two “iconic manufacturers” in crypto which might be rising quickly. Haun didn’t identify these corporations.
With out giving any onerous numbers, Haun stated that her agency hasn’t deployed half of the bigger fund. “Of our earlier stage fund, it’s significantly lower than that,” she stated.
She has no remorse elevating $1.5 billion throughout her two funds. She thinks it’s the correct dimension and she or he believes Haun Ventures will stay dedicated to this form of fund dimension in the long term.
“And by the best way, I’m sitting right here publicly stating this on the file in a stage setting, even when the market is in an enormous crypto bull run, we don’t intend to extend our dimension. We expect we’ve picked our dimension and our technique for a purpose,” Haun stated.
SEC would possibly want to come back again to Earth
When speaking concerning the SEC and present regulatory considerations about cryptocurrencies, Katie Haun expressed some robust opinions about a few of the selections which were made by the company.
“The legislation and the rules are determined on this nation by courts and by Congress. They’re not determined by impartial businesses. So simply because an company says one thing doesn’t actually make it the legislation. And I feel lots of people don’t notice that. And so we’ve seen businesses, sure branches of presidency — by the best way, throughout totally different administrations too — get very, very concerned,” Haun stated.
Specifically, she criticized the present management. “I feel the SEC underneath [Gary Gensler] has actually taken a really expansive view of their jurisdiction in a approach that I feel, by the best way, make no mistake, it’s not simply crypto, it’s on AI, it’s on local weather,” Haun stated.
“And I feel that’s a bit regarding, as a result of that’s not how our system is about up. And I feel that’s why you’ve began to see some federal judges beginning to say ‘wait a second, this can be a step too far,’” she added.
“I feel what’s occurring now’s regulators have to show that they’re the robust cop on the beat. And so they’re going after no matter they’ll, even when they may not in the end prevail.”
The top of FTX
As a former federal prosecutor, Katie Haun additionally had ideas about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX usually. She did meet him a few occasions at conferences.
“I used to be on staff Coinbase and the viewers was by and enormous plenty of FTX supporters. The one different time — I feel I met him two or thrice — the one different time I shared a stage with him was behind closed doorways, so I received’t say an excessive amount of about it. However I can inform you additionally, I used to be speaking about authorities and there have been some awkward moments the place he was saying, oh, I used to be not registering,” she stated.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 21: (L-R) crypto-news Common Supervisor & Editor-In-Chief Connie Loizos and Haun Ventures Founder & CEO Katie Haun converse onstage throughout crypto-news Disrupt 2023 at Moscone Middle on September 21, 2023 in San Francisco, California. (Picture by Kimberly White/Getty Photographs for crypto-news)
