Is Bitcoin Still A Non-Obvious VC Investment?

This week Redpoint Ventures partner, Tom Tunguz penned a pieced titled “The Fastest Growing Areas Of Startup Investment In 2015”. The post examined trends in the major categories of startup investment from 2012 through to mid-2015.

The piece generated a fair amount of interest in the Bitcoin community (for example see HERE, HERE and HERE) as Bitcoin was the fastest growing sector (151% CAGR) according to the data. However, as a percentage of dollars invested, Bitcoin still only accounted for a minuscule piece of the overall pie (0.18% of total VC dollars invested).

A common thought in the world of venture capital is that non-obvious investments are the ones that yield the biggest returns and to generate 10x+ returns that’s where you should go. The data suggests that Bitcoin is becoming a more obvious vertical for VCs. If you’ve been keeping an eye on investment news this probably isn’t a big surprise – with many well known VCs (e.g. A16Z, USV) and corporate investors (e.g Goldman Sachs and NASDAQ) piling into the sector.

With most bets in the space still heavily weighted towards ‘on-ramp’ companies, the growth in infrastructure and ‘blockchain’ based startups is still to come. Further, the overall share of investment dollars still has a lot of growth left in it – which is probably unsurprising given that most companies are still raising seed rounds.

Regardless of how you see it, Bitcoin (and blockchain tech more generally) is still a hot category and it’s only going to get hotter. So if you’re an investor, it’s time to grab your chips and make some bets.