Binance Labs has secured a $500 million (approximately Rs. 3,875 crore) funding round for its Web3 focused fund pool. This round attracted a number of international institutional investors who contributed funds to the Web3 industry’s future and growth. DST Global Partners, Breyer Capital, and Whampoa Group are among the companies involved. The funds will be used to support Web3 and crypto companies in their early phases of development. The news comes at a time when the entire cryptocurrency market is experiencing a slowdown.
Binance Global, the parent of Binance Labs, has established itself among the world’s biggest crypto exchanges since its launch in 2017.
Now, the platform wants to accelerate the use cases and adoption of Web3 elements including 4 cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as well as the metaverse via this funding being collected by Binance Labs.
In a blog post, Binance CEO Chengpeng Zhao stated, “The purpose of the newly closed investment fund is to find and assist companies and founders with the ability to build and lead Web3 across decentralised finance (DeFi), NFTs, gaming, metaverse, social, and more.”
Binance Labs has already financed several Web3 initiatives it deems promising in the current hypercompetitive industrial context since its inception in 2018.
1inch, Audius, Axie Infinity, Dune Analytics, Elrond, Injective, Polygon, Optimism, The Sandbox, and STEPN are among the company’s industry-leading projects.
Meanwhile, institutional investments in the Web3 and crypto sectors are known to blow back life into them, especially when risks of recession have been axing their growth rates.
Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) recently pledged $600 million (roughly Rs. 4,661 crore) to accelerate research and development in the Web3 and NFT gaming industry. The name of this fund pool is ‘Games Fund One’ and it will focus on uplifting game studios, gaming infrastructures providers, as well as consumer applications.
Adding to the list of hefty investments, earlier this month, former Binance executives Ling Zhang and Wayne Fu put together a funding of $100 million (roughly Rs. 776 crore), in order to further the sectors of cryptocurrencies and the metaverse.
In May, Dapper Labs unveiled a $725 million (roughly Rs. 5,600 crore) ecosystem fund to invest in applications and growth for its layer-1 blockchain ecosystem named Flow. The Web3 player powers NBA Top Shot, the popular blockchain-based trading card platform.
Earlier this year, crypto venture capitalist Dragonfly Capital pledged $650 million (roughly Rs. 4,975 crore) in funding, betting on the crypto industry, marking its largest such fund yet.
