6th Man Ventures

6th Man Ventures was founded in 2021 by Mike DudasMike DudasMike Dudas is an American crypto entrepreneur and venture investor who founded the crypto research and media company The Block in 2018 and led it as CEO until 2020, later headed stablecoin business development at Paxos, and co-founded the venture firm 6th Man Ventures and the golf community LinksDAO.Open the full entry and Serge Kassardjian and invests exclusively in the blockchain sector. Dudas founded The Block in 2018, later led stablecoin efforts at PaxosPaxosPaxos is a blockchain-infrastructure company founded in 2012 and led by CEO Charles Cascarilla. It provides enterprises with digital-asset custody, trading, settlement and stablecoin-issuance technology. Its associated assets include PYUSD, USDP, PAXG and USDG, with issuer entities and regulatory oversight varying by asset.Open the full entry and co-founded LinksDAO.⁠[1]

On May 4, 2021, Dudas signed, as principal, a Form D notice of exempt offering for 6th Man Ventures Fund I, LP, a venture capital fund organized in Delaware in 2021 with an address in New York City. Its general partner is 6th Man GP, LLC and its investment manager 6th Man Ventures, LLC, with Dudas and Kassardjian listed as related persons; the first sale had yet to occur at filing.⁠[2]

As of May 12, 2022, 6th Man Ventures had collected $140 million of a planned $145 million for its second fund, which was in the final stages of closing; its first fund, about $7.4 million, had focused on smaller checks. Limited partners in the new fund included Three Arrows Capital, FTXFTXFTX was a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang that operated FTX.com, moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas in 2021 and was valued at $32 billion in January 2022. In November 2022 it filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection amid a liquidity crisis, and Bankman-Fried was later convicted of fraud and related charges. Its reorganization plan took effect in January 2025, after which the FTX Recovery Trust began paying creditors in stages.Open the full entry Ventures, Animoca Brands and AngelListAngelListAngelList is a startup investment platform company based in San Francisco, United States. Founded in 2010 by Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi, it began as a mailing list recommending startups to angel investors, went on to launch online fundraising, Syndicates (co-investing), rolling funds, and other products, and later shifted into a fund administration and back-office services platform for venture capital funds and private markets.Open the full entry, and individual investors included Bill AckmanBill AckmanBill Ackman is an investment manager and the founder and CEO of Pershing Square; he is also executive chairman of Howard Hughes Holdings and a co-trustee of the Pershing Square Foundation. His career spans Gotham Partners, shareholder activism at public companies, closed-end funds and permanent capital vehicles, and philanthropic funding in education, health care, and scientific research.Open the full entry.⁠[3]

By then the firm had made more than 100 investments, about 20 of them public projects, including Magic Eden, STEPN, Rainbow Wallet and Etherscan. The second fund was purely venture-focused, targeting pre-seed, seed and some Series A rounds with checks of up to $4 million, typically $1 million to $2 million; Dudas said the firm would not sell tokens and had a ten-year return horizon. Its focus areas were play-to-earn gaming and the metaverse, web3 networks and DAOs, and infrastructure. Carl Vogel and Aaron Kern joined as partners, with Vogel leading a new research initiative on topics such as ZK-rollups and DAO structure.⁠[3]

The law firm Lowenstein Sandler represented 6th Man Ventures in forming the $145 million fund, having also worked on its first fund.⁠[4]

A Form D filed on August 12, 2022, by 6th Man Ventures Fund IIC, LLC, a Cayman Islands vehicle, listed June 10, 2022, as the date of first sale and showed $29,820,000 sold to 35 investors, with an indefinite total offering amount. Its manager is 6th Man GP II, LLC and its investment manager 6th Man Ventures, LLC; the related persons are Michael Dudas, Serge Kassardjian and Aaron Kern, and Kassardjian signed as a partner of the manager.⁠[5]

On September 15, 2025, Dudas, as managing partner of 6th Man Ventures, discussed the firm’s seed investment in Pump.fun on a Delphi Digital podcast: the firm got in by reaching out to the founders, while other venture firms backed out over legal concerns. The episode also covered Pump.fun’s shift from bonding curves to creator streaming, how he evaluates founders, and the typical path from a cold direct message to an investment.⁠[6]

On December 16, 2025, Kassardjian signed a Form D for 6th Man Ventures Fund III, LP, a venture capital fund organized in Delaware in 2025 with an address in Westport, Connecticut. Its general partner is 6th Man GP III, LLC, with Dudas and Kassardjian both managing directors of the general partner; the total offering amount was indefinite and the first sale had yet to occur at filing.⁠[7]

An ETHDenver speaker profile describes Carl Vogel as a general partner at 6th Man Ventures who invests at the application layer across DeFi, consumer, payments, tokenization and AI, and who previously held senior product and engineering roles.⁠[8]