The Funding: Why big crypto VCs are joining Cobie's Echo

Earlier this year, Echo — the angel investing platform founded by popular crypto trader Jordan Fish, better known as Cobie — publicly called out what it described as growing "hostility" from some venture capital firms. Now, some of the biggest crypto VCs are joining Echo and helping their portfolio companies raise through it. I spoke to VCs and Cobie to understand what's driving the shift.

In January, Echo said some VCs had tried to stop founders from offering better terms to the Echo community, or to block community sales altogether unless done as late-stage, high-valuation launches. That pushback likely didn't come from top-tier firms, but from those struggling to get into deals — as I reported at the time, and as several experts reiterated. "For a certain type of 'follower' VCs, crowdfunding platforms like Echo are absolutely an existential risk," said Alexander Pack, co-founder and managing partner at Hack VC. "The reason is that while tech investing overall is a positive-sum game, allocating capital is a zero-sum game." In other words, if projects carve out room for community raises, someone else gets cut.

While top VCs were broadly supportive of Echo earlier, they're now formalizing that support. In recent weeks, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Hack VC, 1kx and dao5 have all created groups on the platform — marking a shift from quiet alignment to active participation.

These funds aren't using Echo to find deals — they're backing projects the usual way, then helping founders raise from the community through the platform. In most cases, that means offering a portion of their allocation to retail, or encouraging founders to run a separate community round alongside the VC raise.

Hello 👻