Practically 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 TechCrunch 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 basic associate at a16z, bitcoin was buying and selling at $65,000 and Sam Bankman-Fried was nonetheless on the helm of FTX. And Haun agrees that these issues set the house again significantly. However it’s not a foul 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 mentioned. “So I do know that is going to sound somewhat odd, however we really feel truly it’s a very good time to be investing within the house throughout this time.”
In accordance with her, there are a couple of misconceptions about Haun Ventures. “I feel one other misperception is ‘Oh, wow, you raised it throughout a excessive market, nice timing, peak.’ Really, that was not the case,” Haun mentioned. “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, monumental $1.5 billion fund, and we’re not. We now have two funds. We now have an early stage fund, $500 million. We do A, B and C. After which now we have an acceleration fund, which backs all types of later stage tasks in crypto.”
In terms of the bigger fund, Haun Ventures not too long ago closed two offers with out asserting them in two “iconic manufacturers” in crypto which are rising quickly. Haun didn’t identify these corporations.
With out giving any onerous numbers, Haun mentioned that her agency hasn’t deployed half of the bigger fund. “Of our earlier stage fund, it’s significantly lower than that,” she mentioned.
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 kind of fund dimension in the long term.
“And by the best way, I’m sitting right here publicly stating this on the document in a stage setting, even when the market is in an enormous crypto bull run, we don’t intend to extend our dimension. We predict we’ve picked our dimension and our technique for a cause,” Haun mentioned.
SEC would possibly want to return again to Earth
When speaking in regards to the SEC and present regulatory considerations about cryptocurrencies, Katie Haun expressed some sturdy opinions about among the choices which were made by the company.
“The legislation and the laws are determined on this nation by courts and by Congress. They’re not determined by unbiased companies. So simply because an company says one thing doesn’t actually make it the legislation. And I feel lots of people don’t understand that. And so we’ve seen companies, sure branches of presidency — by the best way, throughout completely different administrations too — get very, very concerned,” Haun mentioned.
Particularly, she criticized the present management. “I feel the SEC underneath [Gary Gensler] has actually taken a really expansive view of their jurisdiction in a means 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 mentioned.
“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. They usually’re going after no matter they’ll, even when they won’t in the end prevail.”
The tip of FTX
As a former federal prosecutor, Katie Haun additionally had ideas about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX basically. She did meet him a few instances at conferences.
“I used to be on workforce Coinbase and the viewers was by and huge a whole lot 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 let you know additionally, I used to be speaking about governance and there have been some awkward moments the place he was saying, oh, I used to be not registering,” she mentioned.