Katie Haun’s path to cryptocurrency enterprise capital started with a prosecutorial project that may problem standard 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 activity drive offered firsthand publicity to each prison exploitation and legit innovation in blockchain know-how, expertise that may later inform her funding strategy.
Haun’s workforce traced cryptocurrency transactions that led to profitable prosecutions, together with corrupt federal brokers on the Silk Highway activity drive 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 via 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 associate to co-lead crypto investments alongside Chris Dixon.
At a16z, Haun confirmed how conventional enterprise investing rules might 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 biggest debut fund raised by a solo feminine founding associate.
Haun Ventures
Haun Ventures operates with distinct early-stage and acceleration funds however maintains a extra compact workforce than typical enterprise companies, at present at 10 individuals with a deliberate cap of round 15. This construction displays Haun’s perception in staying nimble whereas offering centered help to portfolio firms.
“Inner operations groups scale very massive and generally you get bounced round,” says Haun. “In contrast to another companies who deliver their community in-house and have an operations workforce, what we love to do is have this broad exterior community, so we are able to actually join you to the world specialists in any given subject.”
Haun emphasizes what she calls “hero moments” — situations the place the agency can present essential help to portfolio firms. “We would like to have the ability to ship on these hero moments via our personal workforce, small but nimble, but in addition via our huge large community,” she says. This may vary from treasury administration challenges to regulatory points or technical expertise recruitment.
The agency approaches crypto investments via a number of lenses. Past conventional enterprise metrics like market alternative and workforce high quality, it evaluates elements particular to crypto initiatives together with tokenomics, regulatory concerns, 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 secure?”
Haun Ventures’ acceleration fund focuses on “what’s working now” in crypto, primarily monetary providers and infrastructure. This consists of direct investments in protocols like bitcoin, ethereum, and solana, in addition to firms constructing important providers 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 elementary technological progress fairly than short-term market actions.
“Web3 is the brand new period of the web and it deserves a brand new period of traders,” Haun informed CNBC. This attitude shapes her agency’s strategy to each early-stage investments and later-stage acceleration alternatives. Somewhat than chasing market tendencies, they concentrate on initiatives constructing important infrastructure for the following era of digital providers.
The event of Haun’s profession — from investigating bitcoin to investing in its future — mirrors broader shifts in how regulators and traders 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 following 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.”