Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom, targets $250 million for new private equity fund
Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom, is raising upwards of $250 million for a new private equity fund. The fund is looking to acquire as many as six medium-sized crypto firms.
Maelstrom co-founder and Managing Partner Akshat Vaidya said the firm will invest between $40 million and $75 million per year with an emphasis on blockchain service providers, including trading infrastructure and analytics startups, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.
According to Vaidya on X, the goal of Maelstrom Equity Fund I is to “provide founders cash-heavy, ‘clean’ exits at reasonable valuations” while also boosting the links between crypto and TradFi.
“Capital allocators (think pension funds, family offices, etc.) want to deploy into crypto-focused funds *at scale* (9-figure+ sums), but current options e.g. “scaled”, large crypto VC funds deliver poor risk-adjusted returns (we’re LPs in many; we know),” Vaidya wrote.
The crypto industry has seen a rising wave of acquisitions and mergers amid a rebounding market following the FTX collapse. Beginning with Stripe’s $1.1 billion purchase of Bridge in late 2024, the sector has seen increasingly large bets, like Ripple’s $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road and Coinbase’s $2.9 billion deal with Deribit.
On Thursday, for instance, the well-capitalized Ripple said it would spend $1 billion to acquire the treasury management firm GTreasury.