Binance Labs, the venture capital and incubation arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has closed a new $500 million fund, the company announced on June 1.
Backers of the fund include DST Global Partners, Breyer Capital, and other unnamed private equity funds and family offices.
Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao said:
“The goal of the newly closed investment fund is to discover and support projects and founders with the potential to build and to lead Web3 across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, Metaverse, social, and more.”
The idea is to invest in projects that can expand crypto use-cases and boost Web3 and blockchain adoption.
The new fund will be used for investment in projects across three stages — incubation, early stage, and late stage.
According to the press release, Binance Labs has invested in and incubated over 100 crypto projects since 2018. Its portfolio includes prominent names like Axie Infinity, Elrond, Dune Analytics, Polygon, and The Sandbox, among others. Binance Labs also supports an incubation program currently holding its fourth cohort.
Binance Labs intends to participate in both token and equity rounds for early-stage investments. For late-stage investments, Binance Labs is looking for startups that want to scale or bridge into the Web3 space and integrate with the Binance ecosystem.
Binance Labs’ new fund reaffirms the confidence displayed by other crypto venture capital firms amid a sluggish crypto market. Andreessen Horowitz recently launched its fourth crypto fund worth $4.5 billion. In the same week, former Binance executives launched a $100 million fund called Old Fashion Research to focus on metaverse and crypto adoption.
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