7 VCs and 53 funds investing in Layer 2
Research Associate, Digital Assets
ARK Invest
Check: Not applicable as a personal founder check. Raye is a digital-assets research associate supporting ARK's managed investment strategies; the cited sources do not establish personal venture check-writing authority or a standard startup ticket.
Raye analyzes how cryptoassets can disrupt legacy financial systems, with particular depth in stablecoin architecture and DeFi application economics. He evaluates networks and tokens through reserves, legal claims, peg resilience, governance, accessibility, incentives and value capture, while tracking the shift of economic activity from base layers toward applications such as exchanges, lending, cards, prediction markets and tokenized assets.
General Partner
Lightspeed Faction
Check: No personal check-size range is published. Faction invests at Seed and Series A through both equity and tokens; the firm's reported fund size and company round totals are not Banafsheh's personal range.
Banafsheh backs early blockchain companies and token networks that create fundamental utility. Her public discussions emphasize the infrastructure or 'plumbing' of crypto, globally relevant financial systems, and matching an application to the chain whose security, performance, and ecosystem fit its use case. Her personal motivation is informed by seeing how broken banking and state-controlled money affect people outside stable financial systems.
Partner
NGC Ventures
Check: No personal or firm ticket is disclosed on NGC's site. Zi's partner title, accelerator mentorship and infrastructure responsibilities show meaningful technical involvement but do not prove a standard range or unilateral decision authority.
Zi focuses on blockchain infrastructure from research through live network operation. He evaluates execution bottlenecks, layer-2 and appchain architecture, EVM compatibility and parallel processing, while StakeX exposes him to validator operations across networks such as NYM, Algorand, SKALE and Avalanche. The result is a practical lens on whether protocol performance claims survive testnets, incentives and production operations.
Venture Partner
NGC Ventures
Check: NGC does not publish a verified personal check range for Kay. The firm describes early-stage Web3 infrastructure investing and research support; founders should confirm the applicable vehicle, initial token/equity structure, ownership and reserves directly.
Kay backs technically ambitious infrastructure founders, with disclosed investments spanning zero-knowledge scaling, modular data availability, decentralized grants and on-chain agreements. His software background and on-chain participation fit NGC's broader long-term thesis: solve a real blockchain bottleneck with a simple, fast, affordable and distinctive design, then work hands-on from technical strategy to adoption.
General Partner
NGC Ventures
Check: No first-party personal or firm check range is published. Third-party directories repeat a $100K–$5M estimate, but it is excluded here because NGC's own site does not substantiate it; founders should confirm stage and ticket directly.
Wayne's record points to foundational network investing informed by public-market research: he supported Solana and Algorand early, before their ecosystems became established, and NGC's current portfolio spans base layers, infrastructure, DeFi, data, compute and interchain systems. His likely edge is connecting protocol economics and technical roadmaps to market adoption across Asian and global ecosystems.
Partner
HashKey Capital
Check: Firm-level public estimate: typically $1M-$5M, varying by stage and opportunity
Xiao looks for durable, real-use-case crypto products that can bring users from Web2 into Web3 and survive multiple market cycles. Public interviews show a broad mandate across DeFi, gaming, stablecoins, and AI, with especially strong interest in DePIN and real-world-asset tokenization, as well as Ethereum and Layer 2 ecosystems.
Investment Director
DFG (Digital Finance Group)
Investing in early-stage blockchain projects at DFG with a focus on DeFi, infrastructure, and emerging crypto ecosystems.
Menlo Park
AUM: $7.6B
Amsterdam
San Francisco
AUM: $2.5B
Abu Dhabi
AUM: $7,500,000,000
San Francisco
Dubai
AUM: $100,000,000
Singapore
AUM: ~$700M peak
Ho Chi Minh City
Singapore
AUM: $27M
Shanghai
India / Global
Estero
Seoul
Hong Kong
Seattle
Miami
New York
AUM: $750M+
Buenos Aires
Miami
Dubai
Road Town
Seoul
Vancouver
Bengaluru
AUM: $75M target
Hamburg
San Francisco
San Francisco
Istanbul
Melbourne
Singapore
Dubai
New York
Mellieha
Miami
Buenos Aires