Ex-Kraken legal head joins Pantera Capital as general partner

Californian venture capital firm Pantera Capital tapped former Kraken legal head Marco Santori as a general partner amid growing investor interest in token deals and crypto IPOs.

Pantera Capital has appointed Marco Santori, the former chief legal officer at crypto exchange Kraken, as a general partner to help the Californian venture capital firm navigate regulatory issues and support startups preparing for public listings.

Santori is well known in the crypto industry for creating the SAFT framework, a tool used by projects to sell tokens to investors before launching.

At Kraken, he led a legal team of nearly 70 lawyers and helped the exchange deal with two enforcement actions brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He also worked as chief legal officer at another crypto firm, Blockchain.com.

“For twelve years I’ve worked alongside you all to build the regulatory environment crypto enjoys today. We’ve won allies in Congress, unseated its most vicious detractors, and even helped put a pro-crypto president in the White House. The work’s not done, but we’re clearly in a new era, and now it’s time to invest in it.”

Marco Santori

Santori still serves as a senior adviser to Kraken. At Pantera Capital, which manages over $5 billion in assets, he will focus on companies “building in regulated spaces,” adding that he wants to find “new projects that can push the regulatory envelope without breaking it, get them funded, and help them thrive.”