Sei Foundation Launches $65M Venture Fund Focused on DeSci as the Sector Picks Up Momentum

Dubbed "Sapien Capital — Open Science Fund I," the venture fund will exclusively invest in DeSci startups building natively on the Sei blockchain

Sei Foundation has launched a $65 million venture fund to support the growth of decentralized science (DeSci) startups building on the Sei blockchain.

The fund, called Sapien Capital — Open Science Fund I, will make venture investments in both tokens and equity of DeSci startups, with check sizes ranging from $100,000 to $2 million. The foundation has fully committed the $65 million capital for the fund, which will be deployed over the next three to four years, said Justin Barlow, head of business development and investments at Sei Foundation and a former investor at Solana Ventures.

The fund will not offer grants and is not an ecosystem fund. Instead, it will focus on early-stage DeSci startups building natively on Sei.

"Our goal is to empower visionary founders who are building the infrastructure, applications and communities needed to support and scale this emerging vertical," said Barlow, in a statement.

DeSci startups have gained traction in recent months, with Binance Labs making its first move into the sector with an investment in BIO Protocol last November. A16z also made its first DeSci investment in decentralized biobank platform AminoChain in September.

Barlow said that Sei Foundation began discussing launching the DeSci fund in the fall of 2024. He added that some of the biggest opportunities in DeSci are consumer-facing applications that have the potential to reach hundreds of millions of users.

"Key areas of interest for the fund include more sophisticated wearables, user-owned data collectives, and gamified drug discovery, all underpinned by the innovative funding and ownership models crypto has developed over the last decade," said Barlow.