Stanford grads announce $28M Blockchain Builders fund incubating frontier web3 startups

May 29th, 2025 – California, United States

Blockchain Builders, a venture fund embedded in the Stanford blockchain ecosystem, has announced the successful closure of its oversubscribed $28 million Fund I.

The pre-seed and seed-stage fund invests in Stanford’s pioneering crypto community and exceptional founders from other top institutions.

Founded by Stanford graduate students Gil Rosen, Kun Peng, and Steven Willinger, the fund has deployed over $16 million in 40 blockchain ventures spanning AI, Infrastructure, Defi, DePIN, Payments, and RWAs. 

The eight-year fund I is on track to deploy remaining capital by end of year, with multiple projects preparing for TGEs. Notable portfolio companies include modular AI blockchain 0G (Hack VC, Bankless, Delphi Digital), supercomputer venture Nexus Labs (Lightspeed, Pantera, Dragonfly), open-access AI cloud Hyperbolic (Variant, Polychain, Topology), and blockless Layer-1 Pod (a16z, 1kx).

“Blockchain Builders was born from our firsthand experience scaling the Stanford blockchain ecosystem,” says Co-founder Kun Peng. “We started Stanford’s Blockchain Accelerator, teach MS&E 447 Blockchain Entrepreneurship, and produce the Blockchain Application Stanford Summit (BASS) conference series – these initiatives have supported over 200 founders, 400 students, and nearly 5000 cumulative attendees, and provide a deep network to inspire, support, and mentor new founders for success.”

Babylon founder Professor David Tse said: “Stanford has an extensive history of blockchain research and innovation including the Tse Lab that I run, the Center for Blockchain Research, and coursework like my EE 374 course on blockchain infrastructure. It’s also responsible for the BASS events and MS&E 447 entrepreneurship course, while the Stanford blockchain accelerator has helped further nurture its founder ecosystem and the number of blockchain startups launching.”

The fund’s leadership brings extensive experience across traditional finance and crypto. Willinger previously led Coinbase Ventures, invested at Capital One Ventures, and worked in product and partnerships at Blockstream and Google / Google X. Rosen, a prolific angel investor, bootstrapped a 100 employee venture, building distributed compute infrastructure for JPMorgan, London Stock Exchange, and the IRS; exiting to AI platform NGData. While Peng has extensive founder experience in web3 spanning crypto analytics and indexing, NFT, DeFi, and infrastructure.

“Our deep Stanford ties give us early access to high potential founders who value our hands-on approach” says Co-Founder Gil Rosen. “We roll up our sleeves and dive into the details of strategy, GTM, and fundraising – positioning them optimally for competitive follow-on rounds led by tier-1 investors.”

As it looks ahead to Fund II, the team is expanding its support to the new IC3-Cornell accelerator which includes Berkeley, Carnegie Melon, Princeton, Yale, and UCL, and is collaborating on thought leading events with the Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Starkware, BASE (Coinbase), and more; scaling its mission of supporting founders nationwide.

About Blockchain Builders Fund

Blockchain Builders is a venture fund investing in pre-seed and seed-stage blockchain founders, primarily sourced from the Stanford ecosystem. Led by experienced builders and operators with a passion for early ventures, the team supplements its capital investment with hands-on support ensuring founder success. The team’s initiatives include Stanford’s Blockchain Accelerator, BASS conference series, MS&E 447, as well as strategic partnerships with leading academic institutions to foster the next generation of Blockchain Builders.

Contact

Gil Rosen
[email protected]