Bman Lee

BMAN Lee is best known today as co-founder and GP / managing partner of ABCDE Capital, a $400 million crypto-focused venture fund co-founded with Huobi co-founder Du Jun in 2022. ABCDE describes itself as a fund for “transformational founders” building the “NextGenInternet,” with teams across Silicon Valley, New York, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing.

Before ABCDE, BMAN was an entrepreneur in China’s Web2 and crypto markets. In 2015, he co-founded Lijiaoshou / Shoujiao Information Technology with Li Jing, a marketing-technology and content business that aimed to use AI and data to help marketers generate creative ideas and predict consumer behavior. Baidu acquired the company in late 2016 at a reported valuation near RMB 100 million; BMAN later said he worked on AI at Baidu for about one year after the acquisition.

BMAN says he first encountered crypto and bought Bitcoin in 2013 while he was a student, after meeting investor Simon Black. He went full-time into crypto at the end of 2017, founded or led Metropolis VC, and became involved with early blockchain investments including IOST, Lambda, ThunderCore, OmiseGO, Zen Protocol, DATA, and Hydro. The Information reported in 2018 that he was managing partner of Metropolis VC and ran a network of about 40 blockchain and crypto blogs.

At ABCDE, BMAN says he is responsible for investment, while Du Jun focuses on resource layout. ABCDE’s platform includes capital plus ecosystem resources such as traffic, exchanges, licenses, developer communities, media, and in-house engineering work.

• ABCDE’s stated focus is “leading investment in top Crypto Builders,” especially founders building the next-generation encrypted network.
• BMAN frames ABCDE’s approach as a “root and leaf” investment philosophy: “roots” are technical infrastructure such as modular stacks, ZK, developer infrastructure, and other core crypto primitives; “leaves” are user-facing surfaces that help crypto reach mass adoption.
• He has said ABCDE looks for “Dev infra or user interfaces that drive massive adoption,” specifically calling out utility NFTs, gaming, transaction interfaces, modular stacks, ZK, and developer infrastructure.
• ABCDE has explicitly allocated attention to the Bitcoin ecosystem; in early 2024 BMAN said the firm noticed Bitcoin ecosystem momentum after Ordinals and planned to allocate one-third of the fund to Bitcoin-related projects.
• The firm appears comfortable leading rounds. In a BlockBeats interview, BMAN said ABCDE had invested in roughly 12 projects in about half a year and that most were lead investments.
• BMAN’s own founder advice, quoted by GRVT, is: “Try to be the only one or No.1 in the category.”