Pantera Capital Aims to Raise $1 Billion in New Fundraising Drive
Pantera Capital, a prominent crypto investment firm, has set a target of raising $1 billion for a new fund to provide fresh capital to the crypto industry. A significant portion of the fund, around $200 million, will be allocated to investments in artificial intelligence (AI) projects, according to Cosmo Jiang, the portfolio manager at Pantera Capital.
Jiang believes that in the future, AI will be integrated into every crypto company’s operations, making it a ubiquitous technology. He compares investing in an AI firm to investing in a company with a website, stating that it will become a standard practice for businesses. As a result, Pantera Capital is actively seeking projects that leverage AI to enhance blockchain businesses or vice versa.
Pantera Capital, known for its investments in major companies such as Coinbase, Circle, and Bitstamp, plans to allocate a significant portion of the new fund to AI-related blockchain projects. Jiang expects the new fund to allocate even more capital to such projects compared to its previous fund, which allocated around 15% to 20% of its capital. If this trend continues, Pantera Capital could potentially invest over $200 million in AI-adjacent crypto projects in the coming years.
The convergence of AI and blockchain technologies has attracted significant attention, with predictions suggesting that it could contribute around $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Investors have already poured over $98.8 million into the sector since the beginning of 2024. The market value of AI tokens has reached $26 billion, and Bitcoin miners are exploring opportunities to provide processing power for training AI tools used by Silicon Valley giants.
Pantera Capital is not the only player recognizing the potential of AI and blockchain convergence. Hedge fund manager Brevan Howard and other industry players are actively exploring opportunities in this space.
In a separate development, three major AI blockchain firms, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol, are planning to merge their crypto tokens to establish a decentralized AI platform and foster collaboration among the three companies. The proposed merger would create an ASI token with a fully diluted value of approximately $7.5 billion. The merger plans are subject to approval from the respective communities, with an official announcement expected in the near future.
However, not everyone is optimistic about AI-related crypto tokens. In a recent research report, Coinbase, a leading crypto exchange, suggested that the value potential of many AI tokens may be overstated due to hype and lack sustainable demand-side drivers in the short to medium term.