Binance Launches $500M Fund To Drive Web3 Adoption
Binance Labs, the investment arm of the world’s largest crypto exchange by total volume, is betting big on the development Web3
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao
key takeaways
- Binance Labs’ latest fund joins the likes of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz in pouring dollars into Web3 startups
- Binance said it intends to allocate the $500 million to projects across three stages of a startup’s lifecycle: incubation, early-stage venture, and late-stage growth
The venture capital and incubation arm of Binance said Wednesday it has closed a new fund to the tune of $500 million, supported by global institutional investors DST Global Partners and Breyer Capital.
Binance Labs said the fund will invest in projects that can extend the use cases of cryptocurrencies and drive the adoption of Web3 and blockchain technologies.
Several other major private equity funds, family offices and corporations will also support the fund as limited partners, according to a statement on Wednesday.
The crypto industry continues to experience large allocations of capital, and Binance’s latest fund, while considerable, is not uncommon. Last week, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz launched a $4.5 billion fund — the industry’s largest to date.
That fund, also slated for Web3 startups, places a large bet on the fusion of technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain, to achieve what some are hoping is the next evolutionary stage of the internet.
“In a Web3 environment, the connection between values, people, and economies is essential,” Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in a statement. “If these three elements come together to build an ecosystem, that will accelerate the mass adoption of the blockchain technology and crypto.”
Like others in the industry, the firm aims to invest the $500 million in startups across three different stages: incubation, early-stage venture and late-stage growth.
Binance Labs is well versed in the investment arena, having poured money into or supported more than 100 projects across 25 countries since its inception in 2018. Its portfolio includes industry heavy-weight projects including 1inch, Audius, Axie Infinity, Dune Analytics, Elrond, Injective, Polygon, Optimism, The Sandbox and STEPN.
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