Sandeep Nailwal’s Crypto VC Fund Symbolic Capital Raises $50 Mn

Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal and Cere Network founder Kenzi Wang had launched a crypto-focussed VC fund – Symbolic Capital – in May 2022. Three months later, Symbolic Capital has raised $50 Mn for the VC fund by and for Web3 founders (and from Web3 enthusiasts such as crypto exchanges, family offices and institutions).

“When you look at the crypto VC landscape, it is rare to find firms that were started by Web3 founders. We built blockchain companies from the ground up and are intimately familiar with the unique challenges these projects face,” Nailwal said. The idea is to allow the widespread adoption of Web3 via consumer-facing decentralised apps (dApps).

Thus, Symbolic Capital plans to back startups building consumer-facing dApps such as those working on blockchain networks, smart contracts, NFT exchanges, metaverse, etc.  

To make investments data-rich, Symbolic Capital will use a data platform to manage the startups it has invested in and guide the firm’s next cheques by tracking GitHub contributions, social media traction and token performance, among other factors.

During Inc42’s Crypto Summit 2021, Nailwal had claimed that he aimed to put India on the world blockchain map. The fund, aimed at supporting startups from developing countries, recognises the struggles of Web3 startups, especially in a country like India with rigid regulations.

“We’re specifically focussed on supporting founders from emerging markets that have often been passed over by traditional VC. Starting Polygon in India, we struggled to get connected to VCs that believed in our vision and abilities as founders,” Nailwal said in a statement. 

He added that the VC firm was not close to Silicon Valley-based startups. Yet, his Indian origin and the gap in funding in the country’s Web3 ecosystem mean that he is most likely to be an angel investor or an advisor to 95% of all the good Indian Web3 projects, he claimed. To note, Polygon also runs a Web3 accelerator program alongside Lumos Labs and recently launched its first cohort of 31 startups.

The VC fund has already made nearly 15 investments. Among these are Web3 gaming startups Planet Mojo, Blinkmoon and Community Gaming. According to Symbolic Capital’s announcement, the VC fund participated in the company rounds alongside Sequoia Capital, A16Z, Galaxy, Dragonfly and Multicoin Capital. 

The move comes when the crypto space faces a funding winter. But the company maintains that Web3 is the next step within the digital ecosystem. In fact, contrary to the ‘funding winter’ ideology, Polygon raised one of the world’s largest funding rounds in the crypto space.

The development was first reported by TechCrunch.

Update | August 26, 2022, 1:50 PM

Spelling error in Sandeep Nailwal’s name corrected.