North Island Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
North Island Ventures (NIV) is a New York-based early-stage venture firm founded in 2020 by Travis Scher, James Hutchins and Glenn Hutchins. Its thesis, published on its site, starts from the claim that the costs of content, code, analysis and labor are collapsing toward zero, so value shifts to what stays scarce. NIV names four categories where it says abundance meets scarcity: agentic finance, stablecoins and on-chain capital markets; open, sovereign and decentralized AI; new markets and applied intelligence; and frontier institutions at the edges of human coordination and governance.
The firm's mission is to back what it calls missionary empire-builders with non-consensus convictions. It looks for founders with the "three I's": intelligence, intensity and integrity, and favors founders whose mission is personal.
Stage Focus
Early-stage. The portfolio page says NIV invests $500K to $5M checks in early-stage companies. Its Fund II press release (September 2022) described initial investments of $250K to $3M. Recent reported rounds include seeds (Limited, GenLayer, Nas.com) and participation in a Series A (Venice), so Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A are all in range.
Check Size
$500K to $5M per the firm's own site. Fund II was built for 30 to 40 early-stage positions with initial checks of $250K to $3M.
Lead Tendency
Both. Third-party deal trackers show NIV leading seeds (Limited, GenLayer) and participating in larger rounds (Venice Series A), so it both leads and follows.
Recent Activity
Third-party trackers (Pitchbook, Tracxn, The Venture Codex, NFX Signal) show roughly four new investments in the last twelve months as of October 2026. These include Hyperlink (latest, October 2026), Limited (September 2026, reported $19M seed, led), GenLayer (July 2026, reported $8M seed, led), Venice (July 2026, reported $65M Series A, participated) and Nas.com (April 2026). These come from aggregator pages, not NIV announcements, so amounts and roles are lower confidence. The firm describes itself as active and publishes research, summit talks and a newsletter.
Portfolio Highlights
The firm's portfolio page lists about 37 companies, each with a one-line descriptor. Named in readable logo captions: Big Time (next-gen game studio), depay (payments infrastructure for Latin America), Fleek (development platform and edge network), Flow (blockchain for open worlds), Hexagate (blockchain security platform, acquired), MNX (the AI exchange), Nous (the AI accelerator company), Opacity (verified data network), Squid (liquidity and messaging router), takenos (stablecoin-powered neobank in Latin America), The College Sports Company (college sports media platform) and T-REX (data and engagement layer). Other names on the page, such as Figure (digital-native capital markets, IPO'd), EtherFi, Etherfuse, Immunefi, Forta and Dapper Labs, had logos with no readable caption and were not added to the portfolio list.
Team
- Travis Scher, Co-Founder and Managing Partner: led investments at Digital Currency Group 2015 to 2019, invested in more than 100 startups and protocols; started as an M&A attorney at Skadden Arps.
- James Hutchins, Co-Founder and General Partner: leads research; formerly Head of Research at Coatue Management.
- Glenn Hutchins, Co-Founder and Chairman: co-founder of Silver Lake; director of Santander and CoreWeave; co-chair of Brookings.
- Sam Andrew, Director of Research: public markets investing; formerly senior investment analyst at BlueMountain Capital.
- Greg Rosenthal, Principal: venture investor; formerly venture team at Galaxy Digital.
- Mario Stefanidis, Senior Analyst: public fintech and technology research; formerly Artemis, BlackRock, Roundhill.
- Kushagra Aryal, Associate: venture investor; formerly Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes family office).
- Michael McCann, Research Analyst: public crypto strategies.
- Charles Moran, Chief Operating Officer.
- Shivank Kumar, General Counsel and CCO.
- David Hatch, CTO.
Decision Process
Partnership. The firm has two named co-founder partners plus a chairman, a principal and an associate on the venture side. No formal committee process is published. Warm introductions are likely useful but are not stated as required.
Founder Preferences
Missionary founders with personal, non-consensus convictions and the three I's of intelligence, intensity and integrity. Technical and crypto-native founders dominate the portfolio. The firm publishes an essay on founder archetypes (July 2026).
Geographic Focus
Global. Portfolio descriptors point to Latin America, Africa and emerging-market payments (depay, takenos, Cedar, Fonbnk), alongside US and global protocol companies. The firm is headquartered in New York.
Fund Status and AUM
Fund II closed in September 2022 with $125M in commitments (Goodwin press release). A secondary directory lists roughly $300M in AUM across vehicles, which includes a public crypto strategy; this is lower confidence. NIV is described as an actively deploying investor.