Introducing Free Company
Seasoned operators backing the next generation of crypto entrepreneurs
Free Company is a syndicate of experienced crypto operators deploying capital into early stage companies. We’ve been quietly investing since last summer and have become one of the most active early stage funds in the industry with early checks into more than twenty companies including Audius, Dune Analytics, and Notional.
Experience: The Missing Link in Crypto Capital Markets
Operators and entrepreneurs have become an increasingly large part of the venture capital market. While entrepreneurs have historically turned to investing after storied careers and large exits, that timeline has become compressed — and in many cases now overlaps. For example, Ryan Hoover raised a $10M fund to invest in consumer and social apps while serving as CEO of Product Hunt.
Crypto has defied this trend — many funds are run by people who have never built companies in the industry and the community of angel investors remains relatively small. We have a couple of theories as to why this is. One is that the networks that fuel a lot of operator capital success — eg Uber alums funding other Uber alums — are still forming in crypto because of how early the market is. Another is that crypto companies have tended to bring on many advisors, which supplants the role of angel investors.
The market is ready for seasoned operators to become a larger part of the capital landscape. Companies have started to emerge as market leaders, which gives operators external credibility to invest. Moreover, many of the $10-$50M funds raised on 2017/2018 ICO gains are closing shop, creating a gap in the market. Companies are also increasingly raising smaller rounds pre-launch, meaning that angels can play a more meaningful part.
Introducing Free Company
Free Company [now] unites operators at market leading companies and invests their pooled experience and capital into early stage cryptocurrency companies. While we’re early in our journey, we’ve assembled one of the most experienced teams of any funds in the industry.
Free Company partners have:
- Grown DeFi protocols into multi-billion dollar networks
- Helped some of the largest crypto projects break into Asian markets
- Negotiated $5M+ of contracts with crypto projects
- Managed $100M+ of primary token offerings
Over the past year, we’ve invested our pooled capital in dozens of early stage teams including ARCx, Audius, Boardroom, Braintrust, Dodo, Dune Analytics, Fei, Fold, The Giving Block, Hashflow, Notional, Parsec, Prysm, Rabbithole and others. Each team we’ve supported along the way has leveraged our collective expertise across 4 key pillars (Growth, Product, Hiring, and Fundraising) to accelerate the progression of their products, protocols, and everything in between.
Our Collective
Regan Bozman — formerly Director of Business Operations at CoinList
Freddie Farmer — formerly Head of DeFi at Wintermute
Don Ho — Managing Director at Quantstamp
Kerman Kohli — Founder at ARCx and DeFi Weekly
Fulvia Morales — PM at 0x Labs
Clay Robbins — the Head of Growth at 0x Labs.
Cooper Turley — Strategy Lead at Audius
Joyce Yang — founder of Global Coin Research
Zhuoxun Yin — PM at Coinbase
Mike Zajko — Head of Sales and Partnerships at CoinList
We’ve also been fortunate to have collaborated closely with some of the top early-stage investors in the space including Reuben Bramathan (IDEO), Jill Carlson (Slow Ventures), and Marc Weinstein (Mechanism Capital).
Take Our Money
If you’re an early stage founder who wants to raise money from experienced operators, drop us a line at hi[at]frco.xyz
