FTX Launches $2B Venture Fund With Focus On Blockchain & Web3 Adoption
Sam Bankman-Fried led FTX has launched a $2 billion venture fund called FTX Ventures. The fund will focus on backing Web3 teams building projects in social media, gaming, fintech, and healthcare.
FTX Ventures plans to invest in up-and-coming crypto protocols as funding could start from $100,000 and could go up to “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Amy Wu, formerly from Lightspeed Venture Partners, will lead the the new initiative. She noted that the organization can deploy all funds by 2023, depending on the opportunities it sees in the market.
In an interview with The Block, Wu said that the fund will make strategic, concentrated bets into companies in the crypto market. Wu commented:
“We’re particularly excited about web3 gaming and its ability to bring mainstream audiences into the ecosystem.
We want to be known for the value add that we bring, leveraging the resources, the expertise and the global network of FTX.”
Majority of Sam Bankman-Fried wealth has come through FTX, which achieved an $18 billion valuation last July during a $900 million raise.
Though FTX Ventures proper has only been announced today, it is far from the first time FTX itself has invested in projects in the digital assets space. Just one notable example occurred in November 2021 when the exchange participated in a $100 million funding initiative in partnership with Solana Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners in order to launch a Web3 gaming fund.
This $2 billion fund nears the largest crypto fund ever, behind Paradigm’s record-setting $2.5 billion crypto fund announced last November.
It’s not unusual for companies in the crypto space to make venture capital-like bets. Coinbase formed its own venture operation in 2018 and has invested in hundreds of early-stage crypto startups using money from its own balance sheet. More recently, NFT infrastructure provider Alchemy unveiled its venture arm at the end of last year.
Just over 1,700 venture capital deals focused on the crypto space occurred in 2021, netting these startups, projects and protocols some $25.1 billion in financing. Several venture firms, including Paradigm and a16z, launched new multi-billion venture funds last year.
