Framework Ventures

Framework Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2019 by Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson. The firm built its reputation as one of the first institutional investors to concentrate on open decentralized finance protocols, and has since expanded to back projects in blockchain infrastructure, AI, robotics, and energy. As of December 2025, CryptoRank data puts its assets under management at $1.28 billion.

Founding and Investment Philosophy

Spencer worked on business operations for Netflix in Japan before co-founding the firm. Anderson came from project management roles at Snapchat and Dropbox. Neither came from a traditional finance background, which shaped their willingness to make early, high-conviction bets on DeFi infrastructure when most institutional money in crypto was still concentrated in exchanges and custodians.

Framework's stated thesis at launch was that the global transition to decentralized technology would produce durable infrastructure protocols worth backing at an early stage, then supporting through governance participation rather than passive ownership. The firm leads rounds rather than joining syndicates, and writes initial checks between $5 million and $50 million.

Early DeFi Portfolio

Framework's foundational investments span the protocols that came to define DeFi. The portfolio from its first fund includes Chainlink Chainlink, the decentralized oracle network; Aave, the lending and borrowing protocol; Synthetix, the synthetic asset platform; and The Graph, the decentralized data indexing protocol. All four grew into multi-billion dollar protocols.

The Synthetix investment illustrates the firm's active approach. Framework purchased five million SNX tokens directly from the Synthetix Foundation's treasury and immediately staked that position on-chain, adding to the protocol's collateral supply and participating in its governance process. The Synthetix Foundation confirmed this arrangement in a public post at the time, noting that Framework also committed to engaging in community governance. That combination of treasury purchase, active staking, and governance participation was unusual for institutional capital in 2019 and anticipated the approach that later became standard among DeFi-native funds.

Funds and Scale

Framework has raised four funds since inception:

• Fund I (2019): the firm's initial crypto vehicle
• Fund II (2021): $100 million
• Fund III (2022): $400 million, focused on gaming and DeFi
• Fund IV (2026): $400 million, expanded across blockchain, AI, robotics, and energy

The fourth fund was announced in June 2026. Anderson told Fortune at the time that approximately half of the capital had already been deployed at the point of announcement. The firm has backed more than 130 companies over its history and has produced two unicorns: Berachain and Andalusia Labs.

Solana Exposure

Framework's primary Solana position is Jito JTO$0.545+3.3% Jito, the MEV infrastructure provider that operates a block engine, relayer network, and liquid staking product on Solana. According to Chain Broker, Jito has produced 8.84x returns for Framework's portfolio, making it the firm's strongest disclosed return from the Solana ecosystem.

The firm's investment page also lists several cross-chain infrastructure projects that include Solana among their supported networks, including Socket Technologies, a cross-chain interoperability protocol.

Expansion Into Frontier Technology

The fourth fund represents a deliberate broadening of scope. Spencer and Anderson described the new fund's focus to Fortune as "frontier technology," a term they use to group crypto alongside AI, robotics, and energy on the grounds that these categories are converging around similar underlying problems in computation, coordination, and incentive design.

Recent deals from this fund include a lead investment in a $60 million Series A for Mecka AI, a robotics company building infrastructure for training robots with human movement data. The firm also acquired approximately a 10% equity stake in mortgage lender Better, valued at around $45 million, alongside a commitment to provide up to $500 million in Sky stablecoin financing connected to real estate lending. In February 2025, Framework led a $24 million funding round for Plasma, a startup building a stablecoin-focused blockchain network.

Current Portfolio

Framework's active portfolio spans DeFi protocols, blockchain infrastructure, security, and real asset markets. Current positions alongside the early DeFi names include Hyperliquid, the derivatives exchange; Sky, the decentralized stablecoin protocol; Maple Finance, the institutional credit marketplace; Spearbit Labs, the competitive smart contract audit platform; and Certora, the formal verification infrastructure provider. The firm has also backed gaming and consumer applications including Pixels and Rumble League Studios.

The investments page carries a disclaimer that the list excludes companies that shut down without exits, investments made without permission to disclose publicly, and unannounced digital asset positions, and that it updates periodically rather than in real time.