RootData: The top ten active crypto venture capitals in Asia-Pacific, led by Animoca Brands and Hashed

Author: Gu Yu & Biscuit, RootData

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vibrant areas in the Web3 industry. Since the beginning of this year, governments in regions such as Hong Kong and Japan have introduced proactive policies to support the local Web3 industry, competing to become the center of Web3. Additionally, mainland China, South Korea, Vietnam, and other countries are also the origins of many well-known Web3 projects.

Currently, an increasing number of Web3 projects are shifting their business focus to the Asia-Pacific region, which has also attracted the attention and actions of many venture capital institutions. In a recent article titled “Top Ten Emerging Crypto Venture Capital Institutions” published by RootData, half of the institutions, including No Limit Holdings, IOBC Capital, and Arcane Group, are located in the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, many established Asia-Pacific institutions such as HashKey Capital, IOSG Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Hashed have also remained active recently.

In this article, RootData combines its own investment and financing data statistics to analyze venture capital institutions primarily located in the Asia-Pacific region based on investment frequency in the past year, lead investment counts, and fund sizes, ultimately identifying the top ten most representative active venture capital institutions. Below is a detailed introduction to these institutions:

Animoca Brands / Animoca Ventures

Animoca Brands is a Web3 gaming software company and venture capital firm founded by Yat Siu in 2014, headquartered in Hong Kong. For a long time, Animoca Brands has been one of the most active investors in the crypto industry, with a cumulative investment portfolio exceeding 400 companies, and it also owns subsidiaries such as The Sandbox and Quidd. In terms of sectors, Animoca Brands primarily invests in gaming and NFT sectors.

In 2022, Animoca Brands established a separate venture capital department, Animoca Ventures, with an initial fundraising target of $2 billion. However, due to a sluggish market and insufficient investor confidence, the fund's target was subsequently reduced to $1 billion and then $800 million. Nevertheless, Animoca Ventures remains one of the funds with the most cash on hand in the market, with the two investment entities making at least 37 investments in the past year, leading at least 8 times, including projects like Mythical Games, OP3N, and Xterio.

Foresight Ventures

Foresight Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry, headquartered in Singapore. Foresight Ventures manages multiple funds with a total asset size exceeding $400 million. The team consists of senior professionals from top financial and technology companies such as Sequoia Capital, CICC, Google, and Bitmain.

Foresight Ventures is supported by the exchange Bitget and adopts an ecological combination strategy to build its brand. Its ecosystem mainly includes the exchange Bitget, wallet Bitkeep, Chinese crypto media Foresight News, and incubator Foresight X.

On June 16, 2022, Foresight Ventures launched a $200 million secondary fund, Foresight Secondary Fund I, focusing on investing in cryptocurrency assets (SAFT) seeking liquidity in the private market. According to official disclosures, the cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is the largest single LP of this fund.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, Foresight Ventures has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 56 investments. In the past year, it has made 25 investments, including well-known crypto projects such as Sei Network, Story Protocol, Ola, DappOS, and EthStorage.

HashKey Capital

HashKey Capital traces its development history back to 2015 when Dr. Xiao Feng from HashKey Group decided to bet on a then-unknown project—Ethereum. Today, Ethereum has grown into the most important platform-level infrastructure in the field.

Following its venture capital business, HashKey Group has successively established HashKey Capital, HashKey Custody, HashKey DID, and other businesses. Recently, HashKey Group also received approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to conduct over-the-counter (OTC) trading of virtual assets, making it one of the most influential crypto companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

HashKey Capital's CEO, Deng Chao, stated in an interview this year that the team is currently distributed across Hong Kong, Singapore, and the San Francisco Bay Area, managing over $1 billion in assets and investing in approximately 300 projects.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, HashKey Capital has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 224 investments. On January 17, 2023, HashKey Capital's three-phase fund completed a $500 million fundraising. In the past year, HashKey Capital has made 55 investments, including well-known projects such as the decentralized real-time rendering network Aethir, the Web3 operating protocol dappOS, and the Web3 interoperability infrastructure PolyHedra.

Hashed

Hashed is the most representative venture capital fund in South Korea, co-founded by Ryan Sungho Kim and others in 2016, and early investments include many well-known projects in the Asia-Pacific region such as Terra, Klaytn, and The Sandbox.

In December 2020, Hashed launched its first venture capital fund with a scale of $120 million. In December 2021, Hashed launched its second venture capital fund with a scale of $200 million. With these two funds, Hashed gradually became one of the most active venture capital funds in the crypto market, with an average of nearly 10 investments per month at the beginning of 2021.

In an interview in the first half of 2022, partner Baek Kim revealed that Hashed's assets under management increased from an initial $700,000 to $4 billion without any LPs, with the team growing to 80 members, and 65% of the founders of invested projects located in Asia.

However, due to excessive bets on Terra and its ecosystem projects, Hashed was significantly affected by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022. Coupled with the poor performance of its preferred DeFi and gaming sectors, Hashed noticeably slowed down its investment frequency, averaging only 2-3 investments per month thereafter.

According to RootData data, Hashed's main fund made 16 external investments in the past year. Although the total number is not high, it led 7 times, including projects like Radius, Notifi, and Aura Network. Additionally, Hashed established a fund dedicated to Web3 investments in emerging markets such as India, called Hashed Emergent, which recorded 4 investments in the past year.

Infinity Ventures Crypto

Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC) is headquartered in Taipei and is a crypto fund with resources from Japan, Taiwan, and mainland China. IVC's mission is to support and invest in pioneering startups in GameFi, DeFi, and Web3. IVC inherits the 13-year traditional venture capital experience of its sister fund, Headline Asia, and its global network connects blockchain companies from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States.

In February 2022, IVC announced the completion of a $70 million fundraising, with investment partners including Circle, Digital Currency Group, Animoca Brands, Hive Ventures, and Cherubic Ventures.

Founding partner Brian Lu stated that the fund has been oversubscribed, and he does not wish for the fund size to become too large, as Web3 companies are seeking smaller financing rounds. Their average investment size may be around $250,000. The fund has deployed 30% and completed 80 transactions, with 55% in Asia and 35% in the Americas.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, Infinity Ventures Crypto has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 119 investments. In the past year, Infinity Ventures Crypto has made 21 investments, focusing on the metaverse and NFT sectors, including well-known crypto projects such as Tribe3, Fungify, MetaZone, and Aspecta.

IOSG Ventures

IOSG Ventures was established in 2017 and is a research-driven early-stage venture capital firm with a presence in China, the United States, and Singapore, focusing on open finance, Web 3.0, and infrastructure in the decentralized economy.

IOSG Ventures' four investment theories are: 1. Ambitious and resilient teams and founders; 2. Groundbreaking projects that add value to the entire Web3.0 ecosystem; 3. Excellent operational and delivery capabilities; 4. Focus on building strong communities with a large user base; IOSG places a strong emphasis on brand building and produces in-depth research reports weekly.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, IOSG Ventures has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 141 investments. In the past year, IOSG Ventures has made 21 investments, including well-known crypto projects such as EigenLayer, Scroll, Connext, and RISC Zero.

NGC Ventures

NGC Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investing in blockchain and distributed ledger technology, headquartered in Singapore. It established its first fund in 2017 and has since invested in over 50 projects, including Algorand, CoinFLEX, and DappReview. According to NGC's Managing Director Jack Lu, the company has achieved approximately 5 times returns from its first fund and currently manages about $400 million in assets.

In January 2020, NGC Ventures raised about $20 million for its Fund II. This fund will deploy a broad investment strategy, ranging from purchasing tokens and structured products to quantitative trading, staking, and mining. NGC founding partner Tony Gu stated that NGC adopts an "all-weather investment strategy" based on different stages of the market cycle (accelerated growth, inflation, slowed growth, deflation, etc.).

In May 2021, NGC Ventures announced the launch of a $20 million strategic investment fund to develop the Solana ecosystem. In addition to investments, NGC Ventures also plans to provide guidance on business development, recruitment, and financial management for ecosystem projects, contributing to the Solana ecosystem. This ecosystem fund is one of five funds that will jointly invest $100 million in the Solana ecosystem, with contributors including NGC Ventures, Huobi, Gate.io, HashKey, and MATH (cross-chain wallet).

In May 2022, NGC Ventures launched the Web3 ecosystem fund Fund III. This is the company's third blockchain fund, raising $100 million from investors such as Babel Finance, Huobi Ventures, Nexo Ventures, Altonomy, and GBIC. NGC Ventures' general partner Roger Lim stated that the fund will allocate capital to "high-potential projects" in the Web3 economy.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, NGC Ventures has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 246 investments. In the past year, NGC Ventures has made 33 investments, including well-known crypto projects such as LayerZero, Connext, and Opside.

OKX Ventures

OKX Ventures is the investment department under OKX, with an initial fund of $100 million, focusing on investments in blockchain infrastructure, Layer2, DeFi, NFT, and Metaverse.

OKX Ventures states that it will provide extensive post-investment services to its investment projects, whether in China, Silicon Valley, Japan, South Korea, or Southeast Asia. It has formed a resource network with local media and KOLs to help entrepreneurs from different angles. Additionally, projects that OKX Ventures deeply participates in and invests in will be recommended to OKX and have the opportunity to access numerous OKX products, services, promotional resources, users, and brand endorsements.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, OKX Ventures has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 130 investments. In the past year, OKX Ventures has made 19 investments, including well-known crypto projects such as LayerZero, Sei Network, Taiko, Berachain, Prisma Finance, and DappOS.

Spartan Group

Spartan Group is a leading blockchain investment and consulting company based in Singapore and Hong Kong, characterized by long-term strategies and value investments. They are dedicated to finding blockchain projects with strong fundamentals, long-term growth potential, and innovation. The institution also pays attention to global market trends and macroeconomic factors, as well as policies and regulations that impact the blockchain industry.

In June 2021, Spartan Group announced the establishment of a $110 million DeFi fund. This fund focuses on the DeFi market, particularly the application layer, and will support projects on Ethereum, Solana, and other networks. This fundraising reflects the growing interest of professional investors in the DeFi market, with LPs mainly being high-net-worth investors and family offices that have recently entered the market. It is reported that the fund has invested in projects like dYdX and Arbitrum, planning to invest in about 50 projects over five years.

In March 2022, Spartan Group announced the establishment of a $200 million metaverse fund, focusing on the construction of metaverse projects, particularly in the "digital ownership" virtual world. Spartan Group's new fund focuses on three different layers of the metaverse: infrastructure layer, experience layer, and value add layer, with the third layer including gaming guilds and NFT trading platforms.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, Spartan Group has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 177 investments. In the past year, Spartan Group has made 36 investments, leaning towards identity privacy and AI directions, including crypto projects such as Aspecta, Kaito, Anoma Network, and zkMe.

SevenX Ventures

SevenX Ventures was established in 2020 and is a rapidly growing emerging crypto investment fund in Asia. Its three founding partners (Jon, FC, Eraser) and other team members are veterans with over 5 years of experience in this industry.

In terms of investment style, SevenX Ventures advocates "immersive investment," providing comprehensive empowerment for the projects they invest in, including funding support, financing planning, product design, economic models, and marketing. The style of deep involvement formed by SevenX Ventures can be traced back to FC and Eraser's previous work at Genesis Capital, where they incubated multiple projects.

According to Rootdata's statistical data, SevenX Ventures has publicly disclosed a portfolio of 115 investments. In the past year, SevenX Ventures has made 23 investments, including well-known crypto projects such as Manta Network, EthStorage, Lifeform, and Caldera.