Architect Partners Ventures

Architect Partners Ventures is the direct investment arm of Architect Partners (AP), the leading crypto mergers and acquisitions and strategic financing advisory firm, founded in 2009 by Eric Risley and co-led with Steve Payne. The broader firm has advised on major transactions including Securitize's acquisition of Velocity Capital Markets, Polygon Labs' intended acquisitions of Coinme and Sequence, and Champ Titles' $18 million Series C. The ventures unit extends this advisory platform into direct early-stage investing in the crypto and fintech ecosystem. The fund deploys $10K to $100K — with a sweet spot of $25K — at pre-seed and seed stages globally across Web3 and blockchain, digital assets, fintech, data analytics, advertising technology, and marketplaces. With 14 investments and a distributed team across the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, and Southern California, Architect Partners Ventures occupies a niche as a seed investor with direct access to crypto M&A flow and strategic intelligence. The firm publishes widely-followed research including crypto M&A alerts and sector topology reports. The ventures arm's primary advantage is informational: operating at the intersection of M&A advisory and direct investing gives the team unusual visibility into acquirer appetites, strategic gaps, and valuation benchmarks across the crypto ecosystem. Founders who take capital from Architect Partners gain not just a check but a firm that understands how their company might ultimately be acquired, licensed, or merged — and is actively working those relationships on their behalf.