1kx is a crypto-native venture fund headquartered in the Netherlands, with operational roots in Berlin. The fund was established around 2017, positioning itself as one of the earlier specialist Web3 investors in Europe. Unlike traditional venture funds that treat tokens as an afterthought, 1kx built its investment thesis around token network economics from the start – backing projects at the seed and pre-seed stage where token design is as important as product design.
The fund invests primarily in decentralized protocols, DeFi infrastructure, and open-source network primitives. Its geographic base in Europe gives it a distinct angle in a landscape dominated by US and Asian capital, and it has built a reputation for technical depth: partners actively contribute to governance discussions, tokenomics modeling, and ecosystem development for portfolio projects rather than taking a passive cap-table position.
Public information about total assets under management is limited. 1kx has not publicly disclosed fund size across its vehicles, which is common among smaller specialist crypto funds. Crunchbase lists the fund as active with dozens of portfolio companies, though deal-by-deal financial terms are not disclosed. For current fund data, see their official site and their Crunchbase profile.
Notable investments
- Uniswap – early backer of the leading decentralized exchange protocol on Ethereum, now one of the most-used DeFi applications by volume.
- 1inch Network – DEX aggregator that routes trades across liquidity sources for best execution; 1kx participated in early rounds.
- Synthetix – synthetic asset protocol on Ethereum; 1kx invested during the project's formative period before DeFi Summer 2020.
- Gnosis / Safe – multi-signature wallet infrastructure that became the de facto standard for on-chain treasury management.
- Livepeer – decentralized video transcoding network; an example of 1kx's interest in token-incentivized infrastructure beyond pure finance.
- Aragon – DAO governance tooling; 1kx was an early supporter of decentralized organization primitives.
- Connext – cross-chain liquidity and messaging protocol, reflecting the fund's more recent focus on interoperability.
- Hop Protocol – token bridge for fast cross-rollup transfers; backed as Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem expanded.
Several of these investments – particularly Uniswap and Synthetix – generated strong returns for early backers during the 2020–2021 DeFi expansion cycle. Performance since the 2022 market downturn has been mixed, as is common across the sector; many token-denominated returns compressed sharply. Public information about specific realized vs. unrealized figures is not available.
Team
1kx was co-founded by Lasse Clausen and Christopher Heymann, both of whom came to the fund with backgrounds in software engineering and early crypto ecosystem work. Lasse Clausen has been publicly active in token economics research and Web3 governance writing. The team has remained small by design – a deliberate choice that keeps the fund's operator-investor model feasible. Public information about additional partners or analysts beyond the core founding duo is limited.
Recent activity
In 2024 and into 2025, 1kx maintained its focus on DeFi infrastructure and early-stage protocol funding, with reported interest in projects at the intersection of DeFi and decentralized social or identity layers. The fund has been vocal in the Ethereum ecosystem about the importance of credible neutrality in protocol design. Specific new deals from 2025–2026 have not been widely covered in public press at the time of writing; for the most current portfolio additions see their official announcements and coverage on The Block.
1kx occupies a specific and credible niche: a small, technically-oriented European fund with genuine early-stage wins in DeFi's formative years. Its influence is stronger in ecosystem contribution and governance than in headline deal flow. Investors watching the fund should expect continued focus on Ethereum-adjacent infrastructure, DeFi primitives, and token network design – the same thesis that defined its first decade.
