Hong Kong-based Alameda Research Ventures (ARV) is playing an increasingly important role in driving the next generation of startups in the cryptocurrency and blockchain spheres.
ARV, the corporate-venturing arm of crypto trading firm Alameda Research, has made 27 investments to date and boasts a portfolio of 25 businesses. Recent deals include a role as lead investor on the $2m seed round for Sahicoin, a social platform for crypto, and another lead role on the $35m series A round for over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform Paradigm.
Earlier this year, ARV took part in a private token sale raising $450m for Polygon, an India-based scaling platform for the Ethereum network. Other portfolio companies include Sommelier, a coprocessor for Ethereum, NFT-generation protocol Alethea AI, and crypto platform Pintu.
Taiyang Zhang, venture partner at ARV, joined the unit in October 2021. His previous role was as co-founder and CEO at Ren, a Singapore-based developer of crypto trading protocol. Zhang is also a founding member of KeeperDAO, a liquidity underwriter for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
Zhang’s colleague Brian Lee joined Alameda Research’s investing team in 2020 and became a partner at ARV at the start of the following year. Lee has a bachelor of science degree in investment and financial risk from Cass Business School in London.
