Crypto Gloss

Electric Capital

Electric Capital is a crypto-native venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Avichal Garg and Curtis Spencer. The firm focuses on long-duration, infrastructure-stage crypto investments and is best known for producing the Electric Capital Developer Report — an annual open-source analysis of developer activity across blockchain ecosystems that has become the most cited data source for evaluating ecosystem health and growth trajectories. As of 2024, Electric Capital manages over $1 billion across multiple fund vehicles.

Background

Both founders had prior careers in tech product and engineering roles:

  • Avichal Garg — co-founder; serial entrepreneur, former product manager at Facebook; known on crypto Twitter for analysis and market commentary
  • Curtis Spencer — co-founder; former partner at another VC fund; engineering background

Electric Capital raised its first fund in 2018 and positioned itself as a “research-first” fund — using data to drive portfolio construction rather than network-driven deal sourcing.

Developer Report

The Electric Capital Developer Report (published annually since 2020) is the firm’s most significant public contribution to the crypto ecosystem. It tracks:

  • Number of active monthly developers (defined as those making at least one GitHub commit to open-source crypto repositories) across 500+ chains and protocols
  • Year-over-year growth rates by ecosystem (Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin Layer 2s, Cosmos, etc.)
  • Full-time vs. part-time developer ratios
  • Developer retention curves following market downturns

Key findings from reports have shown: Ethereum consistently leads in full-time developers, Bitcoin developer count grew significantly post-Ordinals/Taproot, Solana saw the fastest growth rate in 2023–2024, and most individual chain developer ecosystems are smaller than commonly believed.

The report is free and published at developerreport.com.

Investment Focus

Electric Capital invests primarily in:

  • Infrastructure layers — node operators, sequencers, bridges, oracles
  • DeFi protocols — particularly in their early stages before token launch
  • Developer tooling — anything that expands the number of crypto developers
  • Regulated access vehicles — compliant on-ramps for institutional capital

Notable portfolio companies include projects across Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystems.

Related Terms

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