Hashed co-founder Alex Shin and investor Sandeep Ramesh to join Cheng's web3 fund

Hashed co-founder Alex Shin and veteran hedge fund investor Sandeep Ramesh are set to join Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng's new venture fund.

Fundraising documents obtained by The Block show that both Shin and Ramesh will come aboard as general partners.

The Block previously reported that Cheng was seeking to secure more than $100 million for a web3 fund. Sources told The Block that Cheng would continue to operate as the CEO of Mysten Labs and that he is currently in conversations with both potential general partners and limited partners for the new fund. Cheng then confirmed on The Scoop podcast that he is looking to improve the way web3 venture investing works.

"I’ve been working with a couple of veteran investors that have an interest in doing something better," Cheng said on the podcast.

Cheng, Shin and Ramesh did not respond to requests for comment.

A team to 'win this game'

The fundraising documents highlight both Shin and Ramesh's experience in the venture space. Shin co-founded Hashed, which is a crypto venture firm based in Asia that started with a pool of $700,000 in capital in 2017 and had turned it into a treasury of over $4 billion by the middle of 2022. However, it took a significant hit from the collapse of the Terra-luna ecosystem, losing around $3 billion in proprietary capital from bets on the luna token.

Ramesh, on the other hand, comes from the world of traditional finance, bringing expertise in institutional investment management and research, having worked as an investment professional at "Tiger cub" hedge fund Valinor Management before co-founding hedge fund Meghalaya Partners, which had $300 million assets under management at launch. He currently runs Panopticon Ventures, an investment and consulting vehicle.

Ramesh, Shin and Cheng are all named general partners in the deck. The combination will create a multidisciplinary team "to win this game," a slide said.

Beyond Sui

The fundraising documentation does not make clear how Cheng will split his time between Mysten and the fund. Sui, Mysten's Layer 1 blockchain, still hasn't launched and remains in a testnet phase. The blockchain has garnered significant interest from venture investors and raised a total of $336 million since late 2021.

On The Scoop podcast, Cheng was adamant that his venture capital plans, if they come to fruition, would not take the form of an ecosystem fund focused exclusively on the Sui blockchain.

"This is going to be a fund that Mysten will be friendly with, but it’s not a Mysten-only fund so to speak," Cheng said.

One of the slides describes the relationship with Mysten as a "value-add limited partner" that will provide access to deal flow and developer networks.

"Even prior to Mainnet launch, the Sui builder community is decidedly active, creating organic deal flow potential," a slide said.

The fund's anticipated close date is the second quarter of this year, according to the deck.