David Pakman

Background

David Pakman is an American venture capitalist and technologist who serves as Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund, a cryptonative investment firm founded in 2015 ¹. He joined CoinFund in October 2021 after spending 13 years as a partner at Venrock ².

Pakman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science with a degree in Computer Science Engineering in 1991 ³. He began his career at Apple, joining the System Software Product Marketing group, and later co-created Apple’s Music Group ³. In 1995, he co-founded the Macintosh New York Music Festival, one of the earliest examples of webcasting music concerts ³.

In 1999, Pakman co-founded Myplay, Inc., creating the first digital music locker service, which grew to eight million users before being sold to Bertelsmann BeMusic in 2001 ³. In 2003, he joined Dimensional Associates, a private equity firm that acquired eMusic from Vivendi Universal. Pakman served as COO and then CEO of eMusic from 2005 to 2008, growing revenues from $7 million to more than $68 million — an increase of over 850% ³.

Pakman joined Venrock as a partner in 2008, where he focused on early-stage consumer and enterprise technology investing ². His notable Venrock investments include leading the Series A and B rounds of Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever for $1 billion in July 2016), serving on the board of Crunchyroll (acquired by The Chernin Group), and leading Venrock’s investment in Klout (acquired by Lithium Technologies) ³². He began personally investing in crypto in 2017, building Ethereum mining rigs, and made a personal investment in Coinbase prior to its IPO ¹. In April 2017, he was named the 55th top venture capitalist in the world by CB Insights ³.

At CoinFund, Pakman leads the firm’s venture investing activities across seed, venture, and liquid investment stages ¹. He sits on the board of Dapper Labs and previously retained board seats at Rarible, Running Tide, and Simbe Robotics when he left Venrock ²⁴. He is also a board member of Arduino ⁴. Pakman has served on the Board of Overseers at the University of Pennsylvania ¹.

Stated Thesis

Pakman publicly describes CoinFund’s investment focus as targeting companies that demonstrate commercial traction in crypto sectors with large total addressable markets ⁵. His stated areas of interest include layer 1 blockchains, Web3 infrastructure, NFTs, gaming, and asset management ⁵.

Pakman frames blockchain as part of a 15-year cycle of major technology shifts, moving from centralized internet giants toward “a decentralized Internet with ownership and blockchain at its root” ⁶. He has stated that crypto “seems to be the largest and most interesting opportunity for long term venture investment, wealth creation, and disruption” ⁷.

On investment criteria, Pakman has said he prioritizes demonstrated traction: “Show me your traction…show me product market fit…show me devs using the tech” ⁸. He has described CoinFund’s dual investment approach as investing in company equity “just like a venture manager does, but we also get an option, or a warrant, or some right, for tokens in the future” ⁶.

Pakman has expressed particular conviction in stablecoins as a crypto use case, noting the market has reached $230 billion in stablecoins and could grow 5x with favorable legislation ⁷. His stated focus areas at CoinFund include infrastructure, developer tools, DeFi, and emerging onchain consumer applications like real-money gaming ¹.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 16 verified CoinFund investments (see Portfolio below), Pakman’s actual investment behavior at CoinFund shows the following patterns. Note: this represents only investments where CoinFund led or was prominently involved; the full CoinFund portfolio includes 121+ investments across the firm’s history ⁹.

Sector breakdown (16 verified investments): - DeFi / Financial Infrastructure: 5 of 16 (31%) — Veda, LI.FI, ether.fi, Dakota, Flying Tulip - Infrastructure / Data: 3 of 16 (19%) — Irys, Cloudburst, Pluralis Research - NFTs / Digital Collectibles: 2 of 16 (13%) — Dapper Labs, Rarible - AI / Decentralized AI: 2 of 16 (13%) — Giza, Prime Intellect - Gaming: 1 of 16 (6%) — ZOOT - Other (climate, robotics, carried from Venrock): 3 of 16 (19%) — Running Tide, Simbe Robotics, Arduino

Stage distribution (CoinFund-era deals, excluding Venrock carry-overs): - Seed / Pre-seed: 5 of 13 (38%) — Giza, ZOOT, Prime Intellect, Pluralis, Cloudburst - Series A: 5 of 13 (38%) — ether.fi, Irys, Dakota, Rarible (Series A), Veda - Series A Extension / Later: 2 of 13 (15%) — LI.FI, Flying Tulip - Earlier (pre-CoinFund participation): 1 of 13 (8%) — Dapper Labs

Check size: CoinFund Ventures I fund targets $6M–$10M per company for Series A deals ⁵. Seed-stage investments from the $158M Seed IV fund range from $500K to a few million ⁶¹⁰.

Geographic concentration: Based on verified portfolio companies, CoinFund’s investments are heavily concentrated in companies with US headquarters (New York in particular), though many crypto companies operate with distributed global teams.

Co-investor patterns: CoinFund frequently co-invests with other crypto-native firms. Multicoin Capital (LI.FI), Distributed Global (Prime Intellect), Union Square Ventures (Pluralis, Dapper Labs), Coinbase Ventures (Veda, Cloudburst, Dapper Labs), and Venrock (Rarible, Dapper Labs) appear as repeated co-investors across the portfolio.

Notable gap between stated and actual thesis: While Pakman frequently speaks about NFTs and digital collectibles as a major crypto use case, the actual investment pattern at CoinFund shows a stronger lean toward DeFi and financial infrastructure (31%) than toward NFTs (13%). The most recent investments in 2025 (Veda, Dakota, ZOOT, Irys, LI.FI) suggest a shift toward DeFi yield infrastructure, stablecoin-powered applications, and data infrastructure.

Portfolio

Venrock-era investments (board seats retained):

This table represents a subset of CoinFund’s 121+ total investments ⁹ and Pakman’s Venrock portfolio. Only investments where Pakman’s personal involvement or CoinFund’s leadership could be verified from public sources are included.

In Their Own Words

On CoinFund’s market positioning when launching the $300M Ventures I fund in 2022:

“We saw this hole in the market, sort of prodded by our CEOs. We felt we could be very effective and helpful at that stage, so we raised an early-stage fund.” — David Pakman, CoinFund managing partner, CoinDesk, August 2022 ⁵

On navigating crypto market volatility:

“These kinds of market swings are sort of par for the course. As long as you’re focused on building something important that will capture lots of value over time, the markets will cooperate at some point.” — David Pakman, CoinDesk, August 2022 ⁵

On the CoinFund investment approach:

“The innovation is to take cryptographic protection and a novel mechanism for distributed consensus and merge it with a database, so that there is no longer a need for a human to make sure that what’s written in the ledger is trustworthy and accurate.” — David Pakman, Adams Street Partners Q&A, 2022 ⁶

On DeFi infrastructure (regarding the Veda investment):

“Veda solves an unmet and growing need in the DeFi ecosystem — as more wealth comes on chain, infrastructure for the on-chain equivalent of traditional ‘funds’ must exist, and Veda is the leader in providing these vaults. This investment reflects our conviction in the expansive venture return potential in DeFi and the Veda team’s foresight and leadership in providing critical foundational infrastructure for the future of financial markets.” — David Pakman, PR Newswire, June 2025 ²⁰

On crypto as a long-term investment opportunity:

“I’m a long term investor…investments come to fruition over 6-10 year periods.” — David Pakman, The Full Ratchet podcast ⁸

On evaluating startups:

“Show me your traction…show me product market fit…show me devs using the tech.” — David Pakman, The Full Ratchet podcast ⁸

On the FTX collapse:

“This failure of the company was brought on by a bunch of flawed human decision-making . . . the core business was doing great.” — David Pakman, TechCrunch, November 2022 ²⁵

On venture capital as a profession (from his Venrock era):

“I think venture is one of the best jobs in the world. I get to work very closely with truly extraordinary entrepreneurs on a mission to create something better. As an intellectually curious person, I enjoy being able to learn about multiple areas of technical innovation at the same time.” — David Pakman, CNN Money ²⁶

What Founders Say

CoinFund CEO Jake Brukhman, commenting on Pakman’s appointment as Managing Partner:

“We are incredibly honoured to have worked side by side with David Pakman and our platform partners at Venrock for over three years and numerous investments. At CoinFund, we are consistently bridging the gap between blockchain technology and the real world, and there are few venture investors who are as deeply studied in this process as David.” — Jake Brukhman, CEO of CoinFund, BusinessWire, September 2021 ²

A professional peer has described Pakman as “an entrepreneur’s VC” and “a partner to the CEOs in his portfolio” who “understands the way early stage organizations work” and is “a constructive and challenging board member, something every early stage company needs” ².

No independently sourced founder testimonials from portfolio company founders (i.e., founders of Dapper Labs, Rarible, ether.fi, Veda, Dakota, etc.) were found through dedicated searching. The quotes above are from CoinFund’s own leadership, not from external portfolio founders.

Sources