Changpeng Zhao is CEO of Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange he set up in 2017. As well as facilitating the trading of digital currencies, Binance is an active investor in the blockchain and web3 ecosystems, both directly and through subsidiaries such as Binance Labs, a social impact fund.
Among Binance’s direct investments in recent months have been a role in the $18m seed round for Treehouse Finance, a Singaporean analytics platform for firms involved in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space, and the purchase of a $200m stake in publisher Forbes.
The company has also put money into Solv, a booking platform for medical appointments, and video game engine Mythical Games.
Binance Labs was created to administer Binance’s investments into long-term infrastructure for the blockchain and DeFi operations. Zhao has said that, while he does not expect the returns on Binance Labs’ investments to exceed those derived from holding digital currencies, his intention is to support projects that are beneficial to the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Over the past 12 months, Binance Labs has participated in the $5m seed round for Ultiverse, a developer of blockchain-based video games, as well as the $8m seed round for internet infrastructure firm Tea. The unit has also taken stakes in DeFi privacy business Manta Network, non-fungible token (NFT) trading platform Solv Protocol and StarryNift, a platform for trading digital collectibles.
Prior to setting up Binance, Zhao founded cloud computing firm BijieTech and was head of development at Blockchain, the distributed ledger technology developer.
