Katie Haun’s path to cryptocurrency enterprise capital started with a prosecutorial task that may problem typical knowledge about digital forex. As a federal prosecutor in San Francisco in 2012, her investigation of bitcoin revealed sudden insights about blockchain know-how’s potential and limitations.
Throughout her decade on the Division of Justice, Haun constructed experience in cybercrime, corruption, and arranged crime. She prosecuted Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations murders, jail gangs, and cash laundering instances. Her work creating the federal government’s first cryptocurrency process power offered firsthand publicity to each felony exploitation and bonafide innovation in blockchain know-how, expertise that may later inform her funding strategy.
Haun’s group traced cryptocurrency transactions that led to profitable prosecutions, together with corrupt federal brokers on the Silk Highway process power and the investigation of the Mt. Gox hack. These instances helped exhibit blockchain’s inherent transparency and assuaged some issues concerning the know-how’s potential for use for corrupt functions.
From Prosecution to Funding
Haun’s transition to enterprise capital got here by an invite from Andreessen Horowitz. The agency’s founders acknowledged the worth in her uncommon mixture of regulatory experience and deep understanding of cryptocurrency know-how. In 2018, they introduced her on because the agency’s first feminine basic accomplice to co-lead crypto investments alongside Chris Dixon.
At a16z, Haun confirmed how conventional enterprise investing rules may apply to crypto whereas requiring new frameworks for analysis.
“One of many issues I realized within the final 4 years on the agency is that I’m truly an entrepreneur,” Haun informed Fortune. This realization led her to launch Haun Ventures in 2022 with $1.5 billion in capital, the most important debut fund raised by a solo feminine founding accomplice.
Haun Ventures
Haun Ventures operates with distinct early-stage and acceleration funds however maintains a extra compact group than typical enterprise companies, presently at 10 folks with a deliberate cap of round 15. This construction displays Haun’s perception in staying nimble whereas offering targeted help to portfolio corporations.
“Inner operations groups scale very huge and typically you get bounced round,” says Haun. “Not like another companies who carry their community in-house and have an operations group, what we love to do is have this broad exterior community, so we are able to actually join you to the world consultants in any given subject.”
Haun emphasizes what she calls “hero moments” — situations the place the agency can present essential help to portfolio corporations. “We would like to have the ability to ship on these hero moments by our personal group, small but nimble, but in addition by our huge vast community,” she says. This could vary from treasury administration challenges to regulatory points or technical expertise recruitment.
The agency approaches crypto investments by a number of lenses. Past conventional enterprise metrics like market alternative and group high quality, it evaluates elements particular to crypto initiatives together with tokenomics, regulatory issues, and group alignment.
“We overlay a crypto lens over it. We have a look at issues like tokenomics for if we’re investing in a protocol. Are tokens being allotted in possession of a community sensibly?” says Haun.
Her prosecutorial background continues to form the agency’s strategy to regulatory threat evaluation, a course of that values questions like “Are they going to adjust to the legal guidelines or do we have to form new legal guidelines? Do any legal guidelines apply? And if not, how will this be regulated? How will we hold shoppers protected?”
Haun Ventures’ acceleration fund focuses on “what’s working now” in crypto, primarily monetary companies and infrastructure. This consists of direct investments in protocols like bitcoin, ethereum, and solana, in addition to corporations constructing important companies round them. Nevertheless, Haun emphasizes that the agency’s definition of crypto extends past monetary purposes to incorporate distributed computing and frontier applied sciences.
A Prosecutor’s Imaginative and prescient for Web3
Haun maintains optimism about crypto’s long-term potential whereas realistically acknowledging some present challenges. She compares the sector’s growth to the early web, stressing the significance of evaluating basic technological progress slightly than short-term market actions.
“Web3 is the brand new period of the web and it deserves a brand new period of buyers,” Haun informed CNBC. This attitude shapes her agency’s strategy to each early-stage investments and later-stage acceleration alternatives. Somewhat than chasing market traits, they concentrate on initiatives constructing important infrastructure for the subsequent era of digital companies.
The event of Haun’s profession — from investigating bitcoin to investing in its future — mirrors broader shifts in how regulators and buyers view crypto know-how. Her expertise prosecuting crypto-related crimes offered perception into each the know-how’s capabilities and its want for considerate growth. These classes now inform her agency’s strategy to constructing what she sees as the subsequent chapter of digital infrastructure.
“Any know-how that I’ve been conscious of has particular professionals and cons,” Haun informed Ezra Klein in a latest podcast interview. “I believe the societal advantages that I see with crypto are vastly outweighing a few of the downsides. Nevertheless it’s crucial to have the dialog round these downsides.”
