Bain Capital Launches Half-Billion Crypto Investment Branch

Investment banking giant Bain Capital has rolled out a $560 million new company arm to focus specifically on crypto and blockchain.

The financial behemoth announced the launch of Bain Capital Crypto (BCC), a dedicated investment firm “to support crypto/web3 builders from seed through growth with a highly technical and collaborative approach.”

Bain says that BCC grew out of Bain Capital Venture (BCV), which has already actively invested in both protocols and companies for the past seven years. BCV has invested in things like decentralized protocol Compound Finance (COMP), crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, and lending platform BlockFi.

“We believe that we are at the precipice of a monumental technology shift towards open, community-driven, and decentralized services,” the firm said in its announcement.

According to BCC, the firm has three main areas of expertise that will help emerging companies in the space:

• Technical and economic research: As the next wave of internet and financial infrastructure gets built, we believe teams will require deep technical support thinking through critical design decisions.
• Governance design and participation: Crypto protocols require a dedicated level of active participation on topics related to code contribution, risk parameter adjustment, DAO organization, and management. We intend to participate actively in these ecosystems.
• Participation across stages: Given the early liquidity dynamics of crypto protocols and limited capital intensity, protocol teams require investors that can participate across the liquidity spectrum, supporting teams in both private and public markets. We have the flexibility to participate across capital stages and even leverage protocols with our own capital.

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“The number one priority is investing in the infrastructure,” BCV partner Stefan Cohen told Coindesk. “That would be layer 1 scaling solutions, privacy products, middleware, storage solutions, and the sort of components used to build the ultimate internet services we think we’ll be interacting with in the future.”

BCC is broadly focused on decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3, while also keeping a specific spotlight on protocols and their native tokens. No specific investments have been revealed yet, but the BCV partner Alex Evans said,

“You should look for us to build our resume on-chain. We want to use and participate in the protocols and companies we are involved in.”