According to TheBlock, LeadBlock Partners, a venture capital firm based in London and Paris, completed the first close of its new fund, which has a target value of $150 million (€150 million).

Founded only two years ago by former Goldman Sachs employees David Chreng-Messembourg, Baptiste Cota and Jean-Marc Puel, this is the firm's second fund, which it has so far raised capital in the tens of millions. With its first, it made bets on startups such as Yuga Labs, Bitpanda and BlockFi.

"We've raised and deployed most of our first fund over the past two years," said Chreng-Messembourg in an interview with The Block. "But we've been pushed by our LPs to launch fund two faster as we're in a cooldown period where there's a lot of value to be created."

The new fund, which will invest in both tokens and equity, is backed by family offices, hedge fund managers and financial institutions — as well as a who's who of crypto market makers. These include GSR, the Coatue-backed Portofino Technologies, Woorton and Keyrock among others. Wintermute co-founder Yoann Turpin is also investing in the fund, as is SwissBorg founder Cyrus Fazel.