How Former DOJ Prosecutor Katie Haun Emerged as a Leading Voice in Crypto Venture Capital

Katie Haun’s path to cryptocurrency venture capital began with a prosecutorial assignment that would challenge conventional wisdom about digital currency. As a federal prosecutor in San Francisco in 2012, her investigation of bitcoin revealed unexpected insights about blockchain technology’s potential and limitations.

During her decade at the Department of Justice, Haun built expertise in cybercrime, corruption, and organized crime. She prosecuted Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations murders, prison gangs, and money laundering cases. Her work creating the government’s first cryptocurrency task force provided firsthand exposure to both criminal exploitation and legitimate innovation in blockchain technology, experience that would later inform her investment approach.

Haun’s team traced cryptocurrency transactions that led to successful prosecutions, including corrupt federal agents on the Silk Road task force and the investigation of the Mt. Gox hack. These cases helped demonstrate blockchain’s inherent transparency and assuaged some concerns about the technology’s potential to be used for corrupt purposes. 

From Prosecution to Investment

Haun’s transition to venture capital came through an invitation from Andreessen Horowitz. The firm’s founders recognized the value in her rare combination of regulatory expertise and deep understanding of cryptocurrency technology. In 2018, they brought her on as the firm’s first female general partner to co-lead crypto investments alongside Chris Dixon.

At a16z, Haun showed how traditional venture investing principles could apply to crypto while requiring new frameworks for evaluation.

“One of the things I learned in the last four years at the firm is that I’m actually an entrepreneur,” Haun told Fortune. This realization led her to launch Haun Ventures in 2022 with $1.5 billion in capital, the largest debut fund raised by a solo female founding partner.

Haun Ventures

Haun Ventures operates with distinct early-stage and acceleration funds but maintains a more compact team than typical venture firms, currently at 10 people with a planned cap of around 15. This structure reflects Haun’s belief in staying nimble while providing focused support to portfolio companies.

“Internal operations teams scale very big and sometimes you get bounced around,” says Haun. “Unlike some other firms who bring their network in-house and have an operations team, what we like to do is have this broad external network, so we can literally connect you to the world experts in any given field.”

Haun emphasizes what she calls “hero moments” — instances where the firm can provide crucial support to portfolio companies. “We want to be able to deliver on those hero moments through our own team, small yet nimble, but also through our vast wide network,” she says. This can range from treasury management challenges to regulatory issues or technical talent recruitment.

The firm approaches crypto investments through multiple lenses. Beyond traditional venture metrics like market opportunity and team quality, it evaluates factors specific to crypto projects including tokenomics, regulatory considerations, and community alignment. 

“We overlay a crypto lens over it. We look at things like tokenomics for if we’re investing in a protocol. Are tokens being allocated in ownership of a network sensibly?” says Haun.

Her prosecutorial background continues to shape the firm’s approach to regulatory risk assessment, a process that values questions like “Are they going to comply with the laws or do we need to shape new laws? Do any laws apply? And if not, how will this be regulated? How will we keep consumers safe?” 

Haun Ventures’ acceleration fund focuses on “what’s working now” in crypto, primarily financial services and infrastructure. This includes direct investments in protocols like bitcoin, ethereum, and solana, as well as companies building essential services around them. However, Haun emphasizes that the firm’s definition of crypto extends beyond financial applications to include distributed computing and frontier technologies.

A Prosecutor’s Vision for Web3

Haun maintains optimism about crypto’s long-term potential while realistically acknowledging some current challenges. She compares the sector’s development to the early internet, stressing the importance of evaluating fundamental technological progress rather than short-term market movements.

“Web3 is the new era of the internet and it deserves a new era of investors,” Haun told CNBC. This perspective shapes her firm’s approach to both early-stage investments and later-stage acceleration opportunities. Rather than chasing market trends, they focus on projects building essential infrastructure for the next generation of digital services.

The development of Haun’s career — from investigating bitcoin to investing in its future — mirrors broader shifts in how regulators and investors view crypto technology. Her experience prosecuting crypto-related crimes provided insight into both the technology’s capabilities and its need for thoughtful development. These lessons now inform her firm’s approach to building what she sees as the next chapter of digital infrastructure.

“Any technology that I’ve been aware of has definite pros and cons,” Haun told Ezra Klein in a recent podcast interview. “I think the societal benefits that I see with crypto are vastly outweighing some of the downsides. But it’s very important to have the conversation around those downsides.”