One of the most important virtual currency exchanges in the market, Binance, will be launching a $1 billion venture capital fund that aims to fund blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. According to local news sources, Ella Zhang, head of Binance Lab, announced that during an online conference.
Binance Launches $1 Billion Fund
The company will be selecting 20 fund partners to which the exchange will be providing financial support. The partners selected should be long-term investors that have been very active in the blockchain industry, and that have more than $100 million dollars’ asset under management.
All the investments will be made using the BNB token – also known as Binance token – which is used in the platform to trade different cryptocurrencies. In the future, the company wants to use it for its decentralized exchange that has not been tested yet.
The fund will be known as ‘Social Impact Fund’ and will be used to leverage blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. The fund will work as follows, $1 billion dollars will be distributed in 10 phases of $100 million each, and it will create a combination of a fund of funds. Additionally, it will also be creating a direct fund which will be investing in blockchain projects.
At the moment, the company is searching 20 different funds to invest in, and as mentioned before, they must be managing at least $100 million dollars to be eligible.
Apparently, the first project that will be supported is a blockchain-powered ride-hailing initiative. The idea has been recently announced by Chen Weixing, CEO of the Funcity application, and founder of the app Kuaidi Dache.
Mrz. Zhang commented:
“We believe it’s a disruptive social experiment. Binance Labs hopes to work with more aspirational projects to explore blockchain applications and together move forward the growth of the industry.”
Binance is now the most important cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap. The exchange offers its users the possibility to buy and sell a wide variety of tokens and virtual currencies, with almost 340 different trading pairs. The most important are BTC/USDT, EOS/BTC, and EOS/USDT accounting for 26% of the total trading volume of the exchange.
Other Funding Projects
There are several companies that are launching their own funding and accelerator programs. The Chinese e-commerce giant, JD.com, has launched a program – known as AI Catapult – to promote blockchain technology start-ups. With it, the company will be partnering with different innovative blockchain start-ups to build new businesses.
The statement that has been released by the company says:
“Beginning in March, AI Catapult, which is part of JD’s AI program, will partner with innovative blockchain startups to build new businesses and create and test-real world applications of their technologies at scale.”
The main areas that want to be potentiated are robotics, automation technology, smart supply chain, blockchain technology, and many others. There are already some companies from Australia, China, and London ready to start working with AI Catapult.
