Quick take:
- The three former Aptos colleagues joining Shaikh in the new venture include Neil Harounian, the first employee Shaikh hired at Aptos Labs, Alexandre Tang, and Jerome Ong.
- Shaikh, without disclosing how much, also said the four co-founders have invested their own funds in the fund.
- The venture firm aims to help founders “achieve their Maximum Frequency”, said Shaikh.
Mo Shaikh, the co-founder and former CEO of Aptos Labs, has launched a $50 million venture fund to invest in crypto projects. Shaikh is joined by former colleagues at Aptos, including Neil Harounian, the former Aptos head of ecosystem; Alexandre Tang, the former head of APAC institutions; and Jerome Ong, the former APAC ecosystem lead.
The four have launched Maximum Frequency Ventures, a venture firm that Shaikh described as hands-on and one that focuses on quality, rather than quantity.
Maximum Frequency Ventures did not disclose names of investors in the round, but Shaikh told Fortune there were family offices from the U.S., East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Also, without disclosing how much the four co-founders had put in, Shaikh said, “We do have skin in the game.”
According to Shaikh, the fund aims to help founders achieve their “Maximum Frequency”.
The four co-founders believe their background working at a high-level blockchain company will give them an edge in their new space.
“There aren’t really any funds in crypto that incubate,” said Neil Harounian. Unlike other crypto VCs, which “passively write checks into startups”, the four co-founders argued, Maximum Frequency Ventures plans to actively work with founders to build out their businesses and even start companies in-house.
The venture firm has already deployed $5 million into six startups, according to Shaikh, who again, without disclosing the names of the startups the firm has backed, said the founders “are geographically diverse, from Texas to Abu Dhabi to South Korea.”
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