coindesk.com
Launch House, a startup community dedicated to building for the new Silicon Valley, debuted its first fund House Capital on Tuesday with $10 million committed to invest in early-stage companies within its community and external high-growth startups. The investment thesis is broad across the tech landscape but includes Web3 innovations.
“Launch House is basically a membership community for startup people,” co-founder Brett Goldstein told CoinDesk in an interview. “We have these co-living residency programs where they live in this house in Los Angeles or this house in New York and they build their startups in these houses. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense for us to invest in the best companies that come through those houses.”
Funding for House Capital came through a number of limited partners across tech and entertainment companies plus general partners from other funds, including Andrew Chen and Sriram Krishnan from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and James Currier from NFX. A16z led the $12 million Series A round for Launch House in February.
A16z launched a record-breaking $4.5 billion crypto fund in May, and NFX recently committed $62.6 million in follow-on investments in portfolio companies that included some crypto names.
House Capital will invest up to $150,000 in each deal with investments happening as the firm comes across new companies rather than at a set pace, said Launch House co-founder Michael Houck. The fund has already deployed capital to 17 startups and the majority were Launch House veterans. The investments included crypto accounting software Coinbooks.
Goldstein, Houck and fellow Launch House co-founder Jacob Peters serve as the general partners of House Capital.
The majority of House Capital returns will be invested back into Launch House to bolster its programming and member experiences. Founders backed by House Capital will receive lifetime memberships to Launch House and its amenities, including fundraising support, digital cohorts and in-person residencies and retreats.
Launch House is launching its first fund during a global bear market that saw crypto venture capital investments drop 26% year-over-year during the first six months of 2022, but the partners aren’t worried about the timing.
“If you are able to raise a fund, and we were very fortunate to be able to do that, it provides a crazy opportunity where you’re not competing as strongly as you would have last year against other people trying to raise their first funds or big firms continuing to deploy at the same rate,” explained Houck.