Who invests in Web3
According to Ilya Maksimenko, there are about a thousand funds investing in the sphere of the “new level Internet” and related areas all over the world. According to the expert, the venture capital market is mainly represented by qualified investors and venture funds from the USA.
“Consequently, the US now directly or indirectly owns the entire blockchain and Web3 market along with the infrastructure for developers.”
Among the leaders, Maksimenko names funds with billions of dollars of investments in this area: a16z, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures.
At the same time, in Russia, says the CEO of Plasma.Finance, mainly private individuals and business angels are invested in this area. Maksimenko notes that no more than 1% of them are competent, and the rest “run after HYPE and lose money.”
Egor Abramov also shares the opinion that the venture capital investment market in Web3 in Russia is currently represented only by private individuals.
Total Web3 funding by quarter
Roman Malyshev, founder of Asgard, also pays attention to a16z. The entrepreneur recalls that the organization in June last year created a new investment fund for $2.2 billion in order to “profit from the rapid growth of the cryptocurrency and the technological and financial architecture behind it.”
Malyshev also recalls the new $2.5 billion venture fund from Paradigm created in the fall of 2021 for crypto companies and protocols.
“At the beginning of the summer, Binance Labs, the venture division of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, raised $500 million to invest in Web3 startups. The participants of the fund were Breyer Capital, DST Global and several corporations that did not want to mention their names.
Singapore-based Cake DeFi has also created its own venture division. The Cake DeFi Ventures Fund with a capital of $100 million will invest primarily in Web3 startups, as well as in gaming, fintech and metaverses,” the founder of Asgard continues his story.
Malyshev notes that investments in the “Internet of the future” are gaining popularity in Russia. The expert sees a unique opportunity to create favorable conditions for the development of the industry literally at the global level.
In his opinion, the current geopolitical situation makes it possible to intensively develop the segment of venture market specialists, but in order to achieve the stated goal, it is necessary to strengthen the competencies of domestic technology developers.
“In this case, it will be possible to kill two birds with one stone: the country will retain the venture market and will have the opportunity to become a leader among the development platforms of decentralized companies,” the entrepreneur says.
