Binance, the most popular cryptocurrency exchange worldwide, has just launched its own venture capital fund.

Binance Labs, the company’s venture arm said Wednesday that $500 million has been raised for its initial start-up funds. The venture arm secured support from DST Global, Breyer Capital, unnamed family office and corporations.

Binance Labs intends to use this capital to invest into companies that build “Web3”. Web3 is a loosely defined term that, although it’s still unclear what the exact meaning of this term means, hypothetical future iteration of the internetIt’s decentralized and more secure than most online platforms, and includes blockchain. Blockchain is the digital shared ledger behind many major cryptocurrency.

Binance’s latest fund launch comes at a crucial time bitcoinBitcoin and other digital currencies are falling sharply. Bitcoin plunged over 50% after reaching an all time high of almost $69,000 in November. This has had a negative impact on crypto-listed companies such as CoinbaseShares of, have dropped 69% since the beginning 2022. The slump could spread to crypto-start-ups privately held by investors.

While start-up valuations of $1 billion or more are “slowing down a bit,” there’s “no current impact in early-stage private markets,” Ken Li, Binance Labs’ executive director of investments and M&A, told CNBC.

Binance Labs wants to capitalise on the surge in digital assets in order to identify founders who will build what it considers the next major thing in tech. The fund’s investments will be divided into early-stage, pre-seed and growth equity. It will also invest in tokens.

Li stated that they are seeking projects which can drive growth in the Web3 ecosystem. Infrastructure may be included in such projects. nonfungible tokensPlease see the following: decentralized autonomous organizations. Binance believes there are between 300,000 and 500,000 Web3 developers currently active, which Binance hopes will increase “substantially”.

Binance has invested in a number of prominent equity funds over the last 12 months. The company is making its first formal VC investment with funding from outside investors.

Binance Labs has a portfolio of investments that includes Forbes business magazine and Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis is the company behind Axie infinity, a nonfungible token-based game. Terraform Labs is a Singapore-based startup that it invested in. failed stablecoin project Terra.

Li stated that Binance Labs is “always diligent and holds strong convictions in its investment strategy.” “We understand that investing early in life is risky,” Li said. The industry is young, and it was even younger in the past.

Binance also plans to invest $500 million in the company. TwitterGet support Elon Musk’sA bid was made to purchase the social networking service. The company hopes that this will increase its ambition of “bringing Web3 and social media together.”

Binance was established in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur. CryptoCompare data shows that the company handled $490 Billion in spot trade volumes during March.

Zhao stated that Binance has “billions of dollars ready to invest in Web3” during a CNBC interview earlier this year. It has met with success. skepticism from some notable figures in techMusk, as well as the co-founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey. Zhao indicated that Zhao believes in the idea, but said it would take time before it becomes a reality.

“Exactly how it’s going to shape up, what exactly Web3 looks like, which company, which projects — nobody knows,” he said.

Zhao said, “Before Facebook began, nobody could have predicted that.” “We will just have to wait and see what happens.”