Crypto Investments: How Top VCs are Investing Out of Crypto Winter | Crypto Rising
2021, a historical year for crypto. Investors poured in a record $30 billion into the industry even as crypto market capitalization hit almost $3 trillion. Then came the winter. Investor sentiment took a hit in 2022, as digital currencies tumbled and the Terra-Luna implosion spread its tentacles through the crypto ecosystem.
But unlike previous winters, VCs remain unfazed by market volatility and continue to bet big on blockchain and digital asset startups.
Mysten Labs closed a $300 million Series B led by FTX valuing the startup at $2 billion. Here in Asia, Animoca Brand snagged $110 million from big names including Temasek.
Aptos Labs mainnet recently went “live”, putting millions of dollars of investor money to test. Investors’ blue-eyed startup led by ex-Meta employees was valued at $2 billion after securing two successful rounds of funding.
In the backdrop of recent news, we get you strategic insights on what VCs look for in web3 startups and how to navigate ahead.
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Kevin O’Leary, Chairman, O’Leary Ventures
Kevin O’Leary is the Chairman of O’Leary Ventures. He also serves on the board of The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He is a member of Boston’s 107 year old Hamilton Trust. Kevin O’Leary is a contributing columnist for CTV, BNN and the Bell Media Radio Network. He is a contributor to CNBC, ABC News and Good Morning America and an entrepreneur/investor co-host for the Discovery Channels Project Earth series that explores innovative ways man could reverse global warming implementing large scale geo-engineering infrastructure projects. He is also an investor/host of ABC Television’s Emmy Award winning venture capital reality program “Shark Tank”.Kevin was born in Montreal, Canada on July 9th, 1954. As the son of a United Nations ILO official, he had the opportunity to live and be educated in Cambodia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Ethiopia, France and Switzerland. Kevin attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada where in 1977 he received an Honors bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and Psychology. He attended the University of Western Ontario where he received his MBA in 1980. After working briefly as an assistant product manager at Nabisco Brands, he left to pursue a career in television production and became a founding partner in Special Event Television, an independent production company that produced original sports programming such as “The Original Six”, “Don Cherry’s Grapevine” and “Bobby Orr and the Hockey Legends”.Kevin co-founded SoftKey Software Products in Toronto, Canada in 1986. In 1996 SoftKey changed its name to The Learning Company. In early May 1999, The Mattel Toy Company acquired The Learning Company for $4.2 billion. In 2003 he became co-investor and a director in Storage Now, a leading developer of climate-controlled storage facilities. Through a series of development projects and acquisitions, Storage Now became one of Canada’s largest owner/operator of storage services with facilities located in eleven cities serving such companies as Merck and Pfizer when it was acquired by the In Storage REIT in March 2007 for $110 million.In July of 2007 Kevin became a founding investor and Director of Stream Global Services Inc., focused on the growing outsourcing business services market. Kevin is an active photographer, guitarist and author of three number #1 best selling books “Cold Hard Truth”, “Men, Women and Money” and “Family Kids and Money”.Kevin is an active photographer, guitarist and author of three number #1 best selling books “Cold Hard Truth”, “Men, Women and Money” and “Family Kids and Money”.
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Edith Yeung, General Partner, Race Capital
Selected as one of the 10 Most Powerful Investors in Crypto by The Information, Edith is a General Partner at Race Capital – an early-stage Silicon Valley venture capital fund investing in all things infrastructure. Edith is the seed investor in Solana (has been dubbed one of the best venture investments of all time), FTX, Lightning Network, Agora.io, Placer.ai, RapidAPI, and 60 other amazing startups.
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Gin Chao, Founder, NoLimit Holdings
Gin Chao is Founder of NoLimit Holdings, which recently launched its first investment fund CVP NoLimit Fund I, and is a board member of Binance US. He joined Binance.com in 2018 as Strategy Officer where he led the Binance Labs venture investment, Binance Launchpad initial exchange offering, and Binance X fellowship fund teams before stepping down in March 2022.
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Jehan Chu, Cofounder and Managing Partner, Kenetic
Jehan Chu is cofounder and Managing Partner at Kenetic, a blockchain Venture Capital and cryptocurrency trading firm based in Hong Kong. A former front-end developer, he started investing in cryptocurrency in 2013 and has invested and supported over 230 projects.
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Angie Lau, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Forkast News
Angie LauForkast NewsAs an award-winning 20+ year veteran in broadcast journalism, Angie is most recognized for her role as Bloomberg Television’s Asia anchor of “First Up with Angie Lau” where she’s collected 10,000+ interviews in her career, including some of the top newsmakers and business leaders in the world.Angie is a respected thought leader in blockchain technology, leading conversations around the world, including at OECD's Global Blockchain Policy Forum, World Economic Forum, Global Blockchain Business Council / UN General Assembly, Forbes Summit, Binance Blockchain Week, Paris Blockchain Week Summit, Asia Blockchain Summit, and many others.
