Framework Ventures is a venture firm from San Francisco founded by Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson. The new $400 million fund shifts its focus to markets where blockchain is needed not for another wave of speculation, but to attract capital to capital-intensive industries. The fund’s main directions:
- Artificial intelligence.
- Robotics.
- Energy infrastructure.
Main Takeaways
- Framework Ventures sees the future of blockchain as a financial layer for the computing infrastructure of AI, robotics, and energy.
- Michael Anderson believes that cryptocurrency is gradually moving away from serving only crypto users to solving real business problems.
- The San Francisco venture firm has raised $400 million to invest at the intersection of tokenization, stablecoins, and new technologies.
Blockchain Moves Beyond the Crypto Market
Major opportunities for investors are increasingly found not within the crypto industry itself, but alongside it. The technology, long associated with tokens, exchanges, and decentralized financial services, is now seen as a tool for financing infrastructure that requires large amounts of capital.
This logic underpins the new $400 million Framework Ventures fund. The company is betting on tokenization and stablecoins as financial infrastructure for industries that need more flexible ways to raise money and secure loans with assets.
The industry is moving toward applying tokenization, blockchain, and decentralized networks in other markets where these technologies can be revealed in new ways, said Michael Anderson.
According to him, the current stage is noticeably different from the 2020-2021 cycle. Back then, a significant part of the market was built around DeFi protocols, DAOs, and products primarily aimed at the existing crypto audience.
In 2020 and 2021, we were building crypto products for crypto users, said Michael Anderson.
Why AI Infrastructure Needs New Financial Rails
One of the main examples for Framework Ventures is artificial intelligence infrastructure. The development of AI requires expensive graphics processors, servers, and other computing equipment. According to the company, tokenization can make such equipment more convenient as collateral and reduce the cost of financing.
In traditional securitization markets, it is difficult to assemble individual servers or computing power into a clear investment product. Blockchain offers a different approach: an asset can be represented in digital form, and capital in stablecoins can be used for secured lending.
Over $300 billion in stablecoins is already circulating on the blockchain. For Framework, this is not just liquidity within the crypto market, but a potential source of funding for industries where the demand for equipment and infrastructure is growing faster than traditional credit solutions appear.
We have capital on the blockchain to finance this industry, noted Michael Anderson.
In this model, finance becomes closer to real assets. It is not about trading tokens for short-term gain or about platforms like KuCoin, but about creating channels through which venture capital and other sources of money can work with industrial and technological assets.
Energy and Commodities Markets Are Also Moving to Tokenization
The Framework Ventures approach is not limited to computing. The company has already invested in two projects that clearly demonstrate this shift:
- Daylight — financing home solar projects through a distributed energy network.
- Uranium Digital — a tokenized market for physical uranium.
Energy fits well into this strategy: projects require large investments, assets are often difficult to finance, and settlements between participants can be slow and expensive. Blockchain here is seen as a layer that helps connect assets, investors, and payments.
A New Generation of Founders in the Crypto Industry
Michael Anderson also notes how the profile of entrepreneurs has changed. Previously, a significant part of the market was formed by anonymous developers and teams that grew up within the crypto environment. Today, more and more projects are being launched by people with experience in traditional finance, energy, and industrial technology.
They use blockchain not as an end in itself, but as a basic financial infrastructure. In this sense, the market is maturing: not only tokens and communities come to the fore, but also expertise in specific industries, access to assets, and understanding of real business processes.
Recent investments by Framework Ventures already reflect this shift:
- TVL Capital — a project by former members of the Morgan Stanley digital assets team; sector: finance and digital assets.
- Mecka AI — a robotics startup that provides training data to leading companies in artificial intelligence; sector: robotics and AI.
- Plasma — a blockchain platform for banking services built around stablecoin payments; sector: banking infrastructure and payments.
Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson, co-founders of Framework Ventures, are betting that the next phase of the market will look less like a speculative boom and more like an infrastructural restructuring of financial flows. This is not nostalgia for the early eras of corporate software like Ashton-Tate, but an attempt to embed new financial rails into modern industries with huge capital needs.
A similar shift is visible beyond the venture market. Banks and asset managers are increasingly using blockchain platforms to issue, trade, and settle traditional financial assets. Stablecoins, in turn, are gradually entering cross-border payments and treasury operations, as fintech companies and banks look for ways to update payment infrastructure.
What if 2021 was an outlier, and now the market is moving toward fundamental utility, sustainable business models, and the use of this technology not for speculation, asked Michael Anderson.
For Framework Ventures, the answer is already clear: the next frontier of the crypto market may not be within cryptocurrency itself, but in how its technologies help finance artificial intelligence, robotics, energy, and other capital-intensive industries.
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