Fund Seeks $200 Million to Help Startups Survive a Crypto Winter

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, Johnston has launched the Yeoman's Growth Capital fund, seeking to raise up to $200 million to invest in projects that have built functioning software but need help getting it into users' hands.

"We honestly think this is the perfect time to launch a growth capital firm that can take all of these great technologies built in the past few years and help bring them into enterprise and to mass adoption by consumers," Johnston told CoinDesk.

Johnston's personal family office, Yeoman's Capital, has committed an undisclosed amount of capital to the YGC fund, which is now bringing in co-investors, with announcements about limited partners and general partners expected next month.

The original fundraising target for the YGC fund was more ambitious, but Yeoman's set the $200 million cap in accordance with the contraction in the crypto markets.

YGC's focus will be rolling the sleeves up and providing projects with long-term help at getting into enterprises, as well as driving sales and marketing, Johnston said.

"Our focus is on projects that are already live, that already have a mainnet, they have got software, they have got products. What they need help with growth and adoption."

He began investing his own capital in crypto projects in 2016 and started the family office this year, focused on big-picture decentralization and paying all his staff in crypto.

Johnston's goal is filling the gap in the markets between venture capital and private equity, while working directly with protocol founders and the more mature for-profits being built on top of them.

"We haven't seen the TPGs or KKRs of the world move into this space yet. But there is a huge need for this real-world adoption and growth work - and so we are ready to jump into that gap and help grow these companies and protocols for the next few years."

"You can sort of think about this as almost a technology stack where we are going to run these growth plays and it won't just involve one project - it might involve three or four," said Johnston.