Dragonfly Capital’s biggest fundraise sparked a public fight. Days after closing a $650 million Fund IV, managing partner Haseeb Qureshi published a lengthy essay on X titled “How to Build a VC Firm,” positioning himself as the architect behind one of crypto’s most powerful venture firms. Former co-founder Alexander Pack was not having it.
“Bo and I co-founded Dragonfly 1+ year before we hired you to join us. The firm was not at 0, we led plenty of great deals,” Pack, who now runs Hack VC, wrote.
He pointed to early investments in Bybit, Amber Group, and Crusoe as proof that Dragonfly was already deploying capital before Qureshi entered the picture.
Qureshi Hits Back: ‘It Was a Fund of Funds’
Qureshi did not hold back. He challenged Pack’s version of events directly, claiming the firm had never led a single deal before his arrival.
“Alex, don’t embarrass yourself. Dragonfly had never led a single deal before I joined. It was literally a fund of funds,” Qureshi responded.
He added that his first demand upon joining was to end fund-of-funds investments, a move Pack reportedly resisted. Qureshi, a former professional poker player turned crypto VC, has long been the public face of Dragonfly through his role on the Chopping Block podcast and viral posts on Crypto Twitter.
‘You Did Not Build Dragonfly’
Qureshi followed up with a longer post, rejecting the claim he was “hired.” He joined as the third Managing Partner after leaving MetaStable, while Dragonfly’s first fund was only half raised with roughly $55 million in AUM. The firm now manages $4 billion.
He claimed Pack resisted the pivot from fund-of-funds, but Bo Feng sided with him. Pack was out within a year.
“You did not build Dragonfly. Me, Bo, Tom, and Rob did,” Qureshi wrote, closing with a jab at Hack VC’s current fundraise: “You might want to check out a blog post I wrote recently.”
What Fortune’s Reporting Confirms
A Fortune deep-dive published last week corroborates key parts of the timeline. Dragonfly was founded in 2018 by Pack and Bo Feng as a $100M cross-border fund backed by major Asian tech investors. Qureshi joined in 2019. Pack departed in 2020.
Fortune described the split as “the stuff of crypto VC lore.” Qureshi told Fortune that Feng “threw the car keys” to him, marking what he calls “the birth of modern Dragonfly.”
The exchange drew fast reactions on X. Some users backed Pack, writing that “everyone that matters in the crypto venture capital business knew that the Bo relationship was from Alex alone.”
Anndy Lian took a diplomatic stance, acknowledging Qureshi’s “8-9 years of hard work” without weighing in on who started the firm.
What This Means for Dragonfly’s $650M Fund
The timing makes this more than personal drama. Dragonfly Capital Partners now manages roughly $4 billion. In a crypto VC landscape where active US firms have dropped over 25% since 2021, LP trust depends on accurate track record attribution.
How Dragonfly’s early deal history is framed could face scrutiny from institutional investors evaluating the firm alongside competitors like Pantera Capital and Paradigm.
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