- Amy Wu has been hired as the new business unit and fund head.
- Some $25.1 billion was raised for crypto businesses and initiatives in 2021.
New venture capital funds have been formed by Sam Bankman Fried’s FTX, adding billions of dollars to the already bloated private market for cryptocurrency investment. The FTX venture fund has been allocated $2 billion. Amy Wu has been hired as the new business unit and fund head. Because FTX Ventures has such a large fund, it can invest in companies at all stages, from $100,000 to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Amy Wu.
FTX said in a press release that it aims to:
“advance global blockchain and web3 adoption, with a broad investment mandate across social, gaming, fintech, software, and healthcare.”
Nothing Uncommon in the Crypto Industry
Venture capitalist-style investments aren’t uncommon in the crypto industry. Coinbase has invested in hundreds of early-stage crypto businesses using money from its own balance sheet since 2018. As recently as December of last year, the NFT infrastructure provider Alchemy launched its venture arm.
Some $25.1 billion was raised for crypto businesses, initiatives, and protocols in 2021 via 1,700 venture capital agreements. Paradigm and a16z, among others, created multi-billion dollar venture funds last year.
According to Wu, it’s possible that the fund would use all of its money by next year, who joined FTX from Lightspeed Venture Partners last month. FTX was valued at $25 billion in October after raising $420.7 million. In addition to crypto gaming firms, Wu said that she’s also interested in insurance and security solutions. Binance Labs and Coinbase Ventures, both of which have been around for a while, have joined forces with FTX Ventures.
