Dove Dispatch #36 (Alex Svanevik - Nansen)
Onboarding traditional VCs, decentralized M&A stack evolution, having a healthy balance sheet, and much more
GM and welcome to Dove Dispatch #36!
Two things before we get into it:
Dove Metrics’ Regan Bozman published some thoughts last week on what types of Web3 products will find mainstream adoption.
The team behind Dove Metrics runs Lattice, an early-stage crypto venture fund. We are hiring a Part-Time Research Associate. Apply here if you are interested!
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Nansen is a blockchain analytics platform that enriches on-chain data with millions of wallets labels. Crypto investors use Nansen to discover opportunities, perform due diligence and defend their portfolios with our real-time dashboards and alerts.
After a $12M Series A funding round in June 2021 led by Andreessen Horowitz, they recently closed a $75M Series B round led by Accel, with participation from GIC, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, SCB 10X, and others.
Co-founder and CEO Alex Svanevik sat down with us and answered a few questions about his company’s hectic fundraising journey.
You just announced a $75M Series B funding round after a $12M Series A round back in June. As detailed in the announcement post, you executed a lot between the two (multi-chain support, new institutional product line, increased your coverage to 100M+ wallet labels, etc.) - how did that help you raise this massive round?
After our Series A with a16z, there were two main reasons why investors started reaching out to us. First of all, word of mouth spreads fast in what is still a relatively small sector, and our customers truly love Nansen. This made a lot of investors curious about what we’re building Second, we’re growing incredibly fast. As a subscription-based company, annual recurring revenue (ARR) is our north star metric and we grew ~20x year-on-year in 2021. Because of the inbound investor interest, we never went out to actively raise money.
You said you did not touch the $88M of fresh capital - why not? Would you generally advise founders to put as much capital as they can in the bank even if they don’t necessarily need to?
Naturally, we’re not raising money to stuff it in a mattress. The plan has always been to deploy capital, but fortunately for us, our revenues have grown faster than we could hire. This meant we ended 2021 in profit, despite growing the team from 7 to 75+ people.
In crypto it’s important to plan for shifts in market sentiment; you can go through bear markets that last several years. We’re building Nansen for the long term. Having a healthy balance sheet means we can invest in our team and focus 100% on building a world-class product for our users.
As mentioned in this thread, you expect a phase of consolidation in the industry and want to get active in the M&A space in 2022 - how do you think the M&A stack will evolve in a decentralized world?
This is a really interesting question! Putting Nansen aside for a moment, I think there will be a lot of M&A activity surrounding tokens in 2022. And there’s no playbook for this type of M&A activity. So I’m eager to see how this plays out.
For Nansen it’s a matter of identifying positive-sum opportunities where a project actually has a brighter future as part of Nansen than if it were to continue on its own. We have the best on-chain data in the world, an incredible team, and a very strong network around us. These strengths can 10x the potential of smaller businesses.
🙌 Thanks to our sponsors at BarnBridge
Your Series B was led by Accel, one of the most respected traditional VC firms in the world but which has a very nascent track record in the crypto space - why was it strategic to have them on board?
In general, I think it’s important to always strive to reach beyond the crypto bubble. This is a way to grow the whole pie, and it helps the crypto ecosystem beyond Nansen. Specifically, Accel, they have an incredible track record helping software companies scale up. Furthermore, I enjoyed the personal interaction with Andrei Brasoveanu who I had been speaking with over several months. Andrei also led Accel’s investment in our friends at Sky Mavis, who spoke highly of him. So we’re delighted to have Andrei join Nansen’s board as the first external board member.
You are also an active angel investor in the space - your portfolio includes some top projects such as Mercurial Finance, Merit Circle, Element Finance, Hyype, MixMob, etc. How did that help you structure your fundraising process and make your roadshow a success?
Both as a founder and as an investor, I think it helps having the perspective of the other side of the table. For me, the primary motivation for angel investing is to support great teams so they can make their product ideas come to life. A strong secondary motivation is to better understand the fundraising process and the world of venture capital. The founders I invest in are my peers, which means we can share notes on how to successfully build a company.
Many thanks to Alex for sharing incredibly valuable insights.
Last week 39 projects announced fundraising rounds:
BasicBlock ($78M) | A mobile application for truck drivers to scan and upload documents for quick and easy payment — with participation from Autotech Ventures, Clear Haven Capital Management, Emergent Venture, Nelnet, SaaS Ventures, and TNT Ventures.
EXA Finance ($2M) | A peer-to-peer multi-asset exchange for fungible and non-fungible tokens — with participation from Borderless Capital, Lemniscap, Encode Club, Meld Ventures, Algorand Foundation, 11-11 DG Partners, 0x Ventures, Speedinvest, Big Brain Holdings, Al Goanna, and Stonks.
STEPN ($5M) | The world’s first move2earn running app with fun social and game elements — with participation from Sequoia Capital, Folius Ventures, Solana Capital, Alameda Research, DeFi Alliance, Sfermion, 6th Man Ventures, Lemniscap, Corner Ventures, M13, Spark Digital Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Openspace Ventures, Solar Eco Fund, and WelinderShi Capital.
Metastrike ($3.3M) | A blockchain-based VR role-playing first-person shooter Metaverse — with participation from GD10 Ventures, Jump Capital, and KuCoin Labs.
Heroes of Mavia ($5.5M) | The first AAA Blockchain base builder game — with participation from Binance Labs, Genblock Capital, Delphi Digital, Mechanism Capital, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, YGG SEA, ExNetwork Capital, Double Peak, Merit Circle, and Hashkey Capital.
The Graph ($50M) | An indexing protocol for organizing blockchain data — with participation from Tiger Global Management, Blockwall, Fenbushi Capital, FinTech Collective, and Reciprocal Ventures.
Azuro ($3.5M) | A decentralized autonomous organization focused on the democratization and innovation in betting — with participation from Gnosis, Flow, Polymorphic Capital, Ethereal Ventures, Arrington XRP Capital, Alliance DAO, Delphi Digital, MetaCartel Ventures, Merit Circle, Clever Advertising, SevenX Ventures, OP Crypto, CitizenX Crypto Ventures, BR Capital, David Post, Alex Wearn, and Sergei Chan.
Pip | A Web 3 layer for the creator economy powered by Solana — with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, CMS Holdings, Galaxy Digital, and Genesis Block HK.
Stader Labs ($12.5M) | Aggregates decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications into a simplified staking solution for delegators in a bid to maximize their returns — with participation from Three Arrows Capital, Blockchain.com, Accomplice, Digital Asset Capital Management, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber Group, Fourth Revolution Capital, Figment Capital, Prabhakar Reddy, and Matt Cantieri.
Folks Finance ($3M) | The Leading Capital Markets Protocol for borrowing and lending built on top of the Algorand blockchain — with participation from Borderless Capital, Jump Crypto, ParaFi Capital, Coinbase Ventures, OKX, Genesis, Algorand Foundation, YouBi Capital, Polymorphic Capital, Valhalla Capital, 0x Ventures, ZBS Capital, Gains Associates, Eterna Capital, Meld Ventures, Tinyman, Algomint, StakerDAO, My Algo, Venue One, Prismatic, xBacked, David Garcia, and Calvin Liu.
On Cyber ($6.7M) | 3D experiences to show your NFTs — with participation from Variant, Ludlow Ventures, MetaCartel Ventures, 6529 Capital, StarryNight Capital, Galaxy Interactive, Robot Ventures, Jack Herrick, JDH, Bharat Krymo, Erik Calderon, Conlan Rios, VonMises, Deeze, Scott Belsky, Ryan Hoover, Alex Bouaziz, Trevor McFedries, gmoneyNFT, Cozomo de Medici, Jeff Lo, Packy McCormick, John Glick, Night Ventures, Shrug Capital, NeonDao, Clark Valberg, TJ Kawamura, and Denis Mazarov.
Shakepay ($44M) | A technology company that provides financial applications for building wealth — with participation from QED Investors, Boost VC, BoxOne Ventures, Golden Ventures, Broadhaven Capital Partners, Henri Machalani, Mike Murchison, Jevon MacDonald, Mark MacLeod, Dan Debow, and Farhan Thawar.
SOMA.finance ($6.5M) | First compliant Multi-Asset DEX & Issuance Platform — with participation from Animoca Brands, Kenetic, Griffin Gaming Partners, GSR, Mind Fund, UNKNOWN VC, FOMOCraft Ventures, BCW Group, TPS Capital, Gate Ventures, and 0x Ventures.
Infinity Force ($5.5M) | A simple integrated platform to build a guild, access a global pool of trained players and manage team performance autonomously — with participation from Animoca Brands, Jump Capital, SkyVision Capital, OKX, MEXC Exchange, GSR, Double Peak, Token Bay Capital, LD Capital, and DWeb3 Capital.
MetaGoons ($2M) | A new kind of web 3.0 ecosystem Incubator — with participation from Flying Falcon, Arrington XRP Capital, HOF Capital, LD Capital, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, and Jeff Zirlin.
Aleph.im ($10M) | A cross-blockchain decentralized storage and computing network — with participation from Stratos Technologies, Zee Prime Capital, NOIA Capital, Bitfwd Capital, Ellipti, Incuba Alpha Labs, Rarestone Capital, TRGC, Winkrypto, NZVC, Token Ventures, Seven Capital, Chris McCann, Owen Simonin, and Theia.
Vinter ($3.4M) | Europe’s fastest-growing index provider specialized in crypto-assets — with participation from Octopus Ventures, Ricketts Family Office, D4 Ventures, Pfeffer Capital, Gokul Rajaram, Marc Powers, and David Chreng.
Voltage ($6M) | Enterprise-grade infrastructure services for Bitcoin — with participation from Trammell Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, GV, Stillmark, Cavalry Asset Management, Strategic Cyber Ventures, Fulgur Ventures, and Tenzing Capital.
Syndr Protocol ($500k) | DeFi Protocol for simple, capital-efficient, and natively multi-chain synthetic assets — with participation from Anton Bukov, Sergej Kunz, Julien Bouteloup, Stefan George, Tushar Aggarwal, Vaibhav Chellani, Aniket Jindal, Harsh Rajat, Mohak Agarwal, Hitesh Bhardwaj, Abhishek Singh, Prashant Maurya, Roberto Talamas, Wilson Withiam, Farid Rached, Rahul Dalmia, and CoinDCX.
indiGG ($6M) | A subDAO incubating play-to-earn gaming talent in India — with participation from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Variant, Animoca Brands, Dune Ventures, Jump Capital, Griffin Gaming Partners, IVC Venture Capital, Sfermion, Transcend Fund, Play Ventures, Forte, Scopely, Backed, LedgerPrime, YGG SEA, Woodstock Fund, Hyperedge Capital, Hindustan Talkies, Arcanum Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, Emfarsis, Alan Howard, Alexis Ohanian, Manish Agarwal, Neeraj Roy, Sai Srinivas, Guy Oseary, Aleksander Larsen, Sebastien Borget, Jonathan Glick, Nico Nolledo, Paavan Nanda, Sriram Krishnan, Piers Kicks, Jeff Holmberg, Brian Lu, Siddharth Menon, Utsav Somani, Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Ajit Tripathi , Aniket Jindal, Raghu Mohan, Brady Evan, Nitin Agarwal, and Nameet Potnis.
Venue One ($3.4M) | A decentralized prediction protocol on Algorand — with participation from Borderless Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Algorand Foundation, MEXC Exchange, Kosmos Ventures, Meld Ventures, Cognitive Blockchain Capital, CSP DAO, 0x Ventures, Synaps, YouBi Capital, and D4 Ventures.
iTrustCapital ($125M) | Tax Free Crypto Trading — with participation from Left Lane Capital.
Ancient8 ($4M) | The largest Vietnam blockchain gaming guild — with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, Hashed, Mechanism Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda. Research" 3Twelve Capital, GuildFi, Coin98 Ventures, Kyros Ventures, Raydium, Jump Capital, Sipher, Trung Nguyen, Santiago R. Santos, Nick Chong, and Loi Luu.
Carry1st ($20M) | Africa’s #1 mobile publisher — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Alphabet, Riot Games, Konvoy Ventures, TTV Capital, and The Raine Group.
Autograph ($170M) | Iconic NFT collections & experiences that live forever — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and Balius Partners.
DOOMSDAYX ($1.5M) | A creative technology studio for Web3 artists and fans focused on redefining culture on-chain — with participation from The Chernin Group, Delphi Digital, IDEO Colab Ventures, Sneaky Ventures, Abridged, Jess Sloss, Cooper Turley, Deeze, Quickrider, Sisyphus, and Trevor McFedries.
NGRAVE ($6M) | True end-to-end protection with the Coldest Wallet — with participation from "Woodstock Fund, Morningstar Ventures, DFG, Spark Digital Capital, Moonrock Capital, Mapleblock Capital, and Mechanism Capital.
Digital Entertainment Asset ($12M) | A leading GameFi company operating in the play-to-earn (P2E) gaming arena — with participation from JAFCO, and Spartan Group.
Coinhouse ($17M) | Your partner to buy, hold and sell your bitcoins, ethereums, and more than 30 crypto assets — with participation from True Global Ventures, ConsenSys Ventures, Expon Capital, and RAISE.
Rain ($110M) | A licensed crypto-asset brokerage and custodian in the Middle East — with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, MEVP, Cadenza Ventures, JIMCO, CMT Digital, Vision Ventures.
Animoca Brands ($358.9M) | Bringing digital property rights to video gamers and the Metaverse through the use of blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — with participation from Liberty City Ventures, 10T Fund, C Ventures, Delta Fund, Gemini, Gobi Partners, Kingsway Capital, L2 Capital, Mirae Asset Global Investments, Pacific Century Group, Soros Fund Management, Wildcat Capital Management, Winklevoss Capital, Smile Group, ParaFi Capital, Senator Investment Group, Sequoia Capital, and Stable Asset Management.
Metaplex ($46M) | Solana's NFT Standard — with participation from Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Cozomo de’ Medici, William Wesley, Shari Glazer, Rüfüs Du Sol, Solana Capital, Alameda Research, SamsungNext, SinoGlobal Capital, Animoca Brands, Cultur3 Capital, Blue Pool Capital, Kevin Love, Ndamukong Suh, Obi Toppin, Arnold Poernomo, and Lily Liu.
Lit Protocol ($2.2M) | Decentralized access control for connected experiences — with participation from Sfermion, Collab+Currency, CMT Digital, Crowdcreate, G1 Ventures, gumi Cryptos, Kleiner Perkins, Lattice, LongHash Ventures, Protocol Labs, Shima Capital, Tribe Capital, and Village Global.
Redefine ($11M) | The first end-to-end risk management technology for DeFi investors — with participation from Ribbit Capital, Jump Capital, and ParaFi Capital.
POAP ($10M) | Proof of Attendance Protocol — with participation from Archetype, Sapphire Ventures, Collab+Currency, 1kx, Libertus Capital, Red Beard Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Delphi Digital, A.capital, Sound Ventures, Advancit Capital, and The Chernin Group.
Rebel Bots | The ultimate Play to Earn Game — with participation from Ubisoft, Overwolf, Remagine Ventures, Makers Fund, LD Capital, Node Capital, Cointelligence Fund, Metavest Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, MVST:MG, and Tykhe Block Ventures.
Byte Trading ($7M) | An algorithmic market maker in digital assets — with participation from Redalpine, Possible Ventures, L1 Digital, and D4 Ventures.
PlotX ($5M) | Non-custodial prediction markets for crypto traders — with participation from Polygon Studios, Hashed, Animoca Brands, Alpha Wave Global, Sandeep Nailwal, and Alan Howard.
Eizper Chain | F2P-P2E ARPG Game set in a fantasy world with steampunk style powered by Solana — with participation from Alameda Research, Huobi Capital, Crypto.com Capital, DeFi Capital, Avocado Guild, AAG Ventures, Floem Capital, Sea Games Organization, QCP Capital, Petrock Capital, Solana Insiders, ROK Capital, CMS Holdings, Kernel Ventures, Nyan Heroes, Genopets, Arnold Poernomo, Tamar Menteshashvili, Ian Lam, Jack Teoh, NyanQueen Wengie, Solar Eco Fund, and Ivan Lam.
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