Uniswap Labs Ventures is the investment arm of Uniswap Labs, the New York-based company behind the Uniswap decentralized exchange protocol. The venture arm focuses on early-stage projects building DeFi infrastructure, trading tools, and Web3 developer tooling – areas that align directly with Uniswap's core protocol business. The exact founding year of Uniswap Labs Ventures as a distinct entity is not publicly disclosed, though Uniswap Labs itself was established in 2018.
Unlike dedicated crypto venture funds such as a16z Crypto or Paradigm, Uniswap Labs Ventures operates as a strategic arm rather than a standalone fund. Its disclosed portfolio is small – approximately seven investments as of early 2026 – reflecting a selective approach focused on synergistic bets rather than broad sector coverage. Total AUM figures have not been publicly disclosed. The fund draws on resources from Uniswap Labs, which raised a $165 million Series B in October 2022 led by Polychain Capital, with participation from investors including a16z, Paradigm, and Variant.
Notable Investments
Public information on the specific portfolio companies of Uniswap Labs Ventures is limited. The fund has not published a formal portfolio page, and individual deal announcements have been sparse. Based on publicly available records, the fund has backed early-stage projects in DeFi infrastructure and on-chain tooling, consistent with Uniswap's product roadmap. For verified portfolio details, Crunchbase tracks disclosed investments as they become public.
Team
Hayden Adams founded Uniswap Labs in 2018 after teaching himself Solidity following a stint as a mechanical engineer. He is credited with creating the first version of the Uniswap automated market maker and remains CEO. The broader investment team at Uniswap Labs Ventures has not been publicly named as of early 2026 – the fund does not maintain a named partner page comparable to traditional VC firms.
Recent Activity
Uniswap Labs shipped Uniswap v4 in early 2025, introducing a hooks architecture that allows custom logic to be embedded directly in liquidity pools. This technical shift is expected to generate new opportunities for the venture arm to back teams building on top of v4 primitives. In January 2025, Uniswap Labs also launched the Uniswap wallet more broadly and released its own Layer 2 chain, Unichain, built on the OP Stack – signaling a shift toward owning more of the execution stack beyond the AMM itself.
Geographic focus is primarily the United States and Ethereum-adjacent ecosystems, though the protocol's global user base means portfolio companies serve an international market. With a small disclosed portfolio and a parent company actively shipping new products, Uniswap Labs Ventures is better understood as a strategic tool for ecosystem development than as a return-maximizing fund. Its influence on DeFi infrastructure is outsized relative to the number of public bets it has taken.
