Blockchain engineering group Equilibrium launches venture unit, raising over $30 million for first fund

Equilibrium Group, a blockchain engineering company, has launched its venture capital unit, Equilibrium Ventures, along with its first early-stage fund.

Equilibrium Ventures Fund I is seeking to raise 30 million euros (about $32.5 million), the firm's investment partner, Mika Honkasalo, told The Block. About 20% ($6.5 million) of that amount has already been raised in the fund's first close, Honkasalo said, adding that the full close is expected by the end of this year.

Founded in 2018, Equilibrium Group had been making investments from its balance sheet since 2020. The dedicated venture capital unit was always the longer-term plan, said Honkasalo, formerly of ParaFi Capital and The Block and founder of Access Protocol. Honkasalo joined Equilibrium Group over a year ago to support the company's balance sheet investing program, which has now grown into the fund, he said.

The fund's backers include Equilibrium Group itself and limited partners such as Sebastien Borget from The Sandbox , Mask Network and Jigeum Capital, Honkasalo said.

'Engineering-first' venture firm

Equilibrium Ventures differentiates itself with its technical expertise.

Equilibrium Group has helped build several high-profile networks, including Ethereum, Solana, ZKsync , Starknet and Celestia. The group has also incubated EUROe, an EU-regulated stablecoin, and Gevulot, a zero knowledge-proofing startup. Honkasalo said Equilibrium Ventures will get support from the group's over 80 technical experts globally, helping it become an engineering partner for founders and investors.

Equilibrium Ventures is a three-person team, including Honkasalo, Henrik Sundvik (formerly of Bain Company) and Christopher Ahn (formerly of Molten Ventures). They look to invest in tech and infrastructure-focused startups, especially those working in areas such as zero-knowledge fully homomorphic encryption, and other new cryptographic technologies, Honkasalo said.

"We think there'll be an acceleration in two major trends that will drive mainstream adoption: blockchains will be faster and better (more transactions per second and features) and increasingly connected to the real-world economy (real-world assets and people getting paid in stablecoins)," Honkasalo said. "In our view, on-chain will become a word like 'online.'"

The fund

Equilibrium Ventures Fund I has yet to start deploying its capital but expects to fully deploy the fund in the next 24 months, according to Honkasalo. He said the fund will invest in both equity and token projects but expects to back projects that will eventually launch tokens.

The average check size per startup will range from $250,000 to $1 million, mainly backing pre-seed and seed-stage projects, with some Series A startups, Honkasalo said.

Stay updated on the latest crypto funding news and trends with my bimonthly newsletter, The Funding. It's free. Sign up here !