Billionaire Alan Howard’s crypto incubator WebN closes down

WebN Group, the blockchain and Web3 incubator backed by billionaire Alan Howard, is closing its doors after seeding a clutch of digital infrastructure startups over the past several years, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Most recently, the venture studio backed tokenization specialist Libre (now called KAIO), crypto staking shop Twinstake, blockchain infrastructure firm TruFin and zero-knowledge proofs startup Geometry.

In addition to Howard, WebN also received an undisclosed investment from Japanese bank Nomura’s crypto partnership, Laser Digital, back in 2023.

The incubator was described as having “successfully completed its mission” the person said. Some of the staff who worked at WebN moved across to work at Brevan Howard, the hedge fund founded by Howard, they said.

The decision to close down the WebN incubator has no bearing on Howard’s digital asset aspirations, said the person, who is close to the situation at WebN.

“Those who know Alan, know that he has long been convinced that blockchain technology would be used in traditional markets,” the person said.

The last 12 months have been a challenging time for crypto-exposed firms. Brevan Howard’s digital asset fund lost almost 30% last year, according to a report in the Financial Times. This follows gains of 52% in 2024 and 43% the year before.

Like many other hedge funds, Brevan Howard has trimmed its bitcoin BTC$67,987.43 ETF positions, cutting holdings of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust by some 85%, according to data from Bloomberg and CF Benchmarks.

2025 also saw the departure of BH Digital CEO Gautam Sharma, who had been overseeing crypto investing at the firm for a few years. Brevan Howard also decided to spin out Nova, a hedge fund run by former Dragonfly investor Kevin Hu, who joined the firm with his own money pool in 2023 as part of an acquisition.

“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,” said the source.

WebN Group did not respond to requests for comment. Brevan Howard declined to comment.