Binance Labs Launches $500 Million Fund To Boost Blockchain, Web3

The venture capital and incubation arm of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance on Wednesday launched a $500 million fund, that will invest in projects that can extend the use cases of cryptocurrencies and drive the adoption of Web3 and blockchain technologies.

Fund supported by global investors

The fund is supported by global institutional investors like DST Global Partners, and Breyer Capital. Other major private equity funds, family offices, and corporations also subscribed to the fund as limited partners.

“In a Web3 environment, the connection between values, people, and economies is essential, and if these three elements come together to build an ecosystem, that will accelerate the mass adoption of the blockchain technology and crypto,” Changpeng Zhao, Founder and CEO of Binance said.

He added that the goal of the newly closed investment fund is to discover and support projects and founders with the potential to build and lead Web3 across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and Metaverse.

The firm aims to invest the $500m in startups across three different stages: incubation, early-stage venture, and late-stage growth.

Since 2018, Binance Labs has invested in and incubated over 100 projects from over 25 countries. Its portfolio includes projects such as 1inch, Audius, Axie Infinity, Dune Analytics, Elrond, Injective, Polygon, Optimism, The Sandbox, and STEPN.

Venture capitalists (VCs) have poured billions into crypto and blockchain startups this year, especially into the Web3 and Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions space, despite apparent overall bearish sentiments.