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← A brief history of Bitcoin venture capital
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Bitcoin Venture Capital · 2025-Present

Early Riders

Liam Nelson, Michael Tanguma, and Brian Cubellis.

Fund Size

Currently deploying Fund I.

Thesis

Early Riders backs institutional-grade infrastructure at the convergence of Bitcoin, digital assets, and financial services, the picks-and-shovels that make Bitcoin work for the traditional financial system. The fund underwrites every investment in Bitcoin-denominated terms, which aligns incentives across LPs, GPs, and founders. Early Riders concentrates on the teams building durable rails for custody, settlement, and asset servicing as the line between digital-asset and fintech companies keeps dissolving.

Portfolio

Onramp, Acropolis, Onramp MENA, Arch, Argo, Flash, Aureo, and Stables, spanning multi-institution custody, Bitcoin treasury and lending, payments, and the neutral account layer for the stablecoin economy.

Why It Matters

Early Riders is pioneering Bitcoin as the hurdle rate, the benchmark every serious investment in the space should clear, and the fund is betting that standard becomes the industry norm. The fund believes most Bitcoin financial services, from lending to treasury to settlement, will be rebuilt on top of multi-institution custody.

Companies on this list they backed

Onramp, Arch

Cite & share

Early Riders. “A Brief History of Bitcoin Venture Capital: Early Riders.” https://earlyriders.com/top50/vc/early-riders/

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