Billionaire Alan Howard’s crypto incubator WebN shutters after seeding multiple blockchain startups
WebN Group, the blockchain and Web3 venture studio backed by billionaire Alan Howard, has closed its doors after several years of building out digital infrastructure startups, a person familiar with the matter told reporters.
WebN helped launch a string of companies, including tokenization specialist Libre (now rebranded as KAIO), staking provider Twinstake, blockchain infrastructure firm TruFin and zero-knowledge proof startup Geometry. The incubator also received an undisclosed investment in 2023 from Laser Digital, the crypto arm of Japanese bank Nomura.
The source described the closure as a planned outcome — saying WebN “successfully completed its mission.” Some employees from the incubator have moved over to Brevan Howard, the hedge fund founded by Howard, the source added. The person stressed that the decision does not represent a retreat from Howard’s digital-asset ambitions: “Those who know Alan, know that he has long been convinced that blockchain technology would be used in traditional markets.”
The shutdown comes amid a difficult stretch for crypto-exposed firms. Brevan Howard’s digital asset fund reportedly lost almost 30% last year, according to the Financial Times, following gains of 52% in 2024 and 43% in 2023. The firm has also pared back its bitcoin ETF holdings substantially — cutting its position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust by roughly 85%, per Bloomberg and CF Benchmarks data.
2025 brought additional changes at Brevan Howard’s crypto arm: BH Digital CEO Gautam Sharma departed, and the firm spun out Nova, a hedge fund run by former Dragonfly investor Kevin Hu, who joined Brevan Howard in 2023 with his own capital as part of an acquisition. A source said Brevan Howard “isn’t scared off by temporary volatility, remains bullish on digital assets and has a huge VC business focused on the broad opportunity set.”
WebN Group did not respond to requests for comment, and Brevan Howard declined to comment.
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