Global investment management firm VanEck has unveiled a new fund called VanEck Ventures. This initiative fund is dedicated to fintech, digital assets, and artificial intelligence companies in their pre-seed and seed stages, the earliest development phases.

This investment aims to support promising, innovative companies before they fully scale, helping them grow and develop their products or services. This initiative is a bold move to enhance VanEck’s foothold in the venture capital landscape. 

A Strategic Expansion into Venture Capital

Earlier today, VanEck Ventures launched with $30 million in assets under management (AUM). This marks a significant expansion for the firm into venture capital. Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez, both of whom previously led Circle Ventures, will spearhead the project. 

Jan van Eck, the CEO of the investment firm, expressed enthusiasm for the fund’s mission during a press statement. He highlighted the firm’s long-standing commitment to a long-term view of transformative opportunities. 

He noted the firm’s history of innovation, from gold investing in 1968 to recognizing Bitcoin’s potential in 2017. In addition, he mentioned that the fund has already invested in four projects. This showcases its proactive approach to early-stage opportunities.

VanEck Venture to Focus on Application Layer Innovations

During the announcement, it was disclosed that the fund is particularly interested in projects building on the application layer while remaining infrastructure-agnostic. With a keen eye for innovation, it aims to deploy capital into 25 to 30 projects, with individual investments ranging from $500,000 to $1 million. 

This includes investments in tokenized assets, internet-native financial marketplaces, and next-generation payments middleware. The firm shared that these innovations are poised to shape the future of finance and redefine the financial services sector.

VanEck’s Vision for Digital Assets

VanEck, known for identifying emerging investment trends, is expanding its focus beyond crypto-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with ambitious plans for the digital asset space. In a recent interview, Portfolio Manager Pranav Kanade shared that CEO Jan van Eck envisions increasing the firm’s crypto allocation to 15% of its assets under AUM, compared to the current 1%.

Reflecting this forward-thinking approach, VanEck launched its community Non-Fungible Token (NFT) in 2022 to highlight the broad utility of the asset class. Additionally, the firm set a bold price target for Ethereum (ETH) in June. It forecasted it to reach $22,000 by 2030, which underscores its confidence in the future of digital assets.

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