New crypto funds continue to pop up even amid a general market pullback. The latest to be created are a new investment unit from China-founded cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global, as well as a new $52m fund from Krungsri Finnovate, the corporate venture capital arm of financial services firm Krungsri.
Huobi Global has become the latest crypto company to launch its own venturing unit, dubbed Ivy Blocks, which is focused on backing decentralised finance (DeFi), Web3 and blockchain technology companies, buttressed by a “multi-billion dollar” war chest.
Huobi’s chief financial officer, Lily Zhang, said: “Many promising projects tend to encounter liquidity constraints and a lack of go-to-market support, which present significant barriers to growth.”
“Our focus on providing such projects with liquidity investments and incubation services will no doubt contribute towards creating a better, more inclusive DeFi and web 3.0 blockchain ecosystem.”
According to Huobi, Ivy Blocks will consist of three core services. The Liquidity Investment Department will act as an asset management platform for DeFi mining and income aggregation and Ivy Research will carry out research into blockchain and cryptocurrency technology and applications, while Ivy Labs will act as a crypto and blockchain incubator.
Having both an accelerator and a venture investment function mirrors the efforts of one of Huobi’s big global counterparts, Binance, which has had an accelerator for a while through Binance Labs – along with its own startup investments – and recently closed a $500m investment fund to support the cryptosphere.
It joins other crypto-native companies such as decentralised financial services firm Cake DeFi, which also launched its venturing arm, Cake DeFi Ventures, earlier this year.
Elsewhere, Thailand-based Bank of Ayudhya’s – commonly known as Krungsri – Krungsri Finnovate unit launched a maiden $52m vehicle, which it calls its Finnoverse fund, to invest in blockchain, fintech and DeFi technologies including metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and gaming finance (GameFi).
Its managing director, Sam Tanskul, told DealStreetAsia that they will consider investing in seed stage for the first time, ahead of what he calls the emergence of blockchain-based banking in the future. The fund has a three-year investment period.
As with neighbouring Vietnam, Thailand is home to a market with a strong appetite for digital assets, and according to Tanskul its high number of venture capitalists keep capital flowing to a smaller number of startups with strong fundamentals despite the market slowdown.
Tanskul also said Krungsri Finnovate is separately aiming to back seven startups through what it calls the first startup private equity trust fund in the country, three times as large as Finnoverse, investing at series A and beyond in sectors including e-commerce, fintech and automotive. It already has five corporate investors including PTT Oil and Retail, The Stock Exchange of Thailand, Siamrajathanee and NTT Data.
