Silver Lake Founder Glenn Hutchins Launches $72M Digital Asset Fund

Technology investor Glenn Hutchins has launched a digital asset-focused venture capital fund with his partners James Hutchins (who is also his son) and Travis Scher, called North Island Ventures.

The fund, which has raised $72 million to date, seeks opportunities to invest in “enabling technologies,” according to the thesis on its website, that entrepreneurs can use to create entirely new kinds of applications, experiences and innovations in digitally native finance, decentralized communities, user-controlled data and decentralized computer networks. 

Its portfolio currently includes non-fungible token (NFT) maker Dapper Labs, carbon removal marketplace Nori and cross-chain communication startup Axelar, Scher said in a tweet Thursday.

Hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, Apollo Group cofounder Josh Harris, venture capitalist Geoff Yang, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and rapper LL Cool J are also investors in the fund.

Glenn Hutchins, cofounder of the $43 billion private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, was one of the earliest finance industry heavy-hitters to embrace bitcoin and more specifically, endorse the idea and potential of public blockchains (which at the time many tried to separate from the digital asset itself). 

He left Silver Lake in 2018 to make private equity-style investments through North Island, the New York-based family office he runs with James. Shortly after it led an equity fundraising round for Digital Assets Data, the data and analytics startup acquired last month by NYDIG.

James Hutchins previously led research at Coatue Management; Scher ran investments at Digital Currency Group.