RW3 Company announces the success of closing its first investment fund with $60 million through Raptor in cryptocurrencies
RW3 Capital Investment has announced a successful closure of its inaugural fund, a $60 million fund led by the Rapteur Group, the family office of billionaire Jim Balluta, with significant support from Mubadala’s exchange, one of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds.
As cryptocurrency markets progress, buoyed by mutual fund approval for Bitcoin and expectations of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, capital investment is once again flowing into the nascent industry after a sluggish year in 2023.
RW3 co-founder and managing partner Pete Najarian stated that the company’s key backers and its commitment to practical blockchain technology use cases, such as in music and healthcare, will help it capitalize on the expected bull market, despite the fund’s relatively modest size compared to industry giants in the previous cycle.
“We wanted to be agile and have a debut fund that achieves significant success. In fact, I am fond of our current size,” Najarian said.
Before the establishment of RW3, traditional finance intersected with cryptocurrencies. Najarian had deep roots in cryptocurrencies, having worked in institutional affairs at Zabu Bank, an early adopter of digital assets led by Wences Casares, later serving as Chief Revenue Officer at BitGo after Zabu’s sale to CoinBase.
Najarian collaborated with Balluta to establish RW3 in 2021. Prior to founding Rapteur, Balluta was a Vice President at Theodore Investment Company and held executive positions at AS Roma and the Boston Celtics.
While RW3 is a separate entity from Rapteur, Najarian stated that the fund benefits from the family office’s strong network, including in hardware — one of RW3’s investments is in a company working on cryptographic technology called Fully Homomorphic Encryption, which can disrupt integrated circuit manufacturing, although Najarian declined to share the name.
Najarian said RW3 began fundraising from limited partners for its first fund in the second quarter of 2022 and has deployed less than 50% of the capital. This reflects a new readiness from sovereign wealth funds to venture into cryptocurrencies after catastrophic collapses in 2022, with FTX backed by groups including Temasek Singapore.
With Abu Dhabi and Dubai seeking to solidify their positions as cryptocurrency hubs, exchanges have made significant investments in the industry.
Najarian stated that RW3 has over 25 other limited partners in its first fund, although he declined to provide a specific number.
The fourth quarter of 2023 saw a slight increase in venture capital investments in cryptocurrencies, the first increase from quarter to quar
