Craft Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2017 by David Sacks and Bill Lee. The firm backs early-stage companies across enterprise software, fintech, consumer internet, and crypto. Sacks brought an unusually operational pedigree to the partnership: he was a founding member of the PayPal team, served as COO of Palantir Technologies, and later served as CEO of Yammer, which Microsoft acquired in 2012 for approximately $1.2 billion. That background shapes how Craft evaluates portfolio companies – the fund prioritises capital-efficient, product-led growth businesses with defensible network effects.
Total assets under management are not publicly disclosed. The firm raised an undisclosed Fund II in 2020 and has been active across both equity and token rounds. Craft operates as a generalist fund with a dedicated crypto thesis: the team looks for base-layer infrastructure, DeFi protocols, and developer tooling that mirrors the architectural bets they make in traditional software markets. Geographic focus is primarily the United States, with selective exposure to globally distributed Web3 teams.
Notable investments
- Solana – participated in early funding rounds for the high-throughput Layer-1 network, one of the firm's most cited Web3 positions
- Filecoin / Protocol Labs – backed decentralised storage infrastructure ahead of the Filecoin mainnet launch
- Slack – pre-IPO investment; Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021 for $27.7 billion, one of Craft's headline returns (Crunchbase profile)
- Affirm – buy-now-pay-later fintech, now publicly traded on Nasdaq
- Mercury – neobank for startups; raised at a $1.6 billion valuation in 2023
- Hopin – virtual events platform that raised over $1 billion at peak; later restructured and sold its core product to RingCentral at a significant write-down – an honest example of peak-2021 valuation risk
Public information on the full crypto-specific portfolio beyond Solana and Filecoin is limited. The firm has confirmed token and equity participation in several Web3 rounds without disclosing terms.
Team
David Sacks is the general partner most associated with the fund's public identity. Beyond investing, he co-hosts the All-In podcast alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg – a show that commands significant attention in Silicon Valley and crypto circles. In January 2025, Sacks was appointed White House AI and Crypto Czar by the incoming Trump administration, a role that placed him at the centre of US digital-asset policy discussions. That appointment created an unusual dynamic: a sitting VC partner shaping the regulatory environment in which his own portfolio operates. Sacks stated he would recuse himself from matters directly affecting portfolio companies, though critics noted the structural tension.
Bill Lee is a co-founder and managing partner. His background spans operations and early-stage investing; he previously worked alongside Sacks at PayPal and has been a consistent limited-partner and operator in Silicon Valley for over two decades. Other partners and principals have joined the team since founding, though Craft does not publish a detailed team page.
Recent activity
The most consequential development of 2024–2025 was Sacks's move into government. His appointment as Crypto Czar was widely covered by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. The role put Craft in an unusual position: its founder became a key architect of the first comprehensive US crypto regulatory framework, influencing stablecoin legislation and SEC enforcement posture. Whether that proximity to policy translates into better deal flow or creates reputational risk is a live question for the fund.
On the investment side, Craft remained active in AI-adjacent infrastructure rounds through late 2024. The firm has also continued to hold Solana exposure through the token's recovery cycle. Hopin's write-down served as a public reminder that even well-connected funds are not immune to valuation compression when revenue does not follow hype. Craft's longer-term track record – anchored by Slack and early fintech bets – remains strong relative to peers of its vintage. The firm's next fund size and crypto allocation will likely be shaped by how the Sacks policy tenure resolves and whether US regulatory clarity draws new institutional capital into Web3 at scale. More detail on current fund status and LP composition is not publicly available. For the latest filings, see SEC EDGAR Form D filings.