Quick take:
- Solana Ventures seeks to invest in GameFi, DeFI and NFTs in South Korea.
- Ledger and Cathay Innovation hope to make 20 to 25 investments with their $110 million fund.
- The fund combines Ledger’s Web3 security expertise and Cathay’s extensive corporate ecosystem.
Solana Ventures announced today a new $100 million investment and grant fund for South Korean Web3 startups, focusing on gaming studios, GameFi, NFTs and DeFi.
According to Austin Federa, head of communications at Solana Labs, the fund is backed by capital from the Solana community treasury in addition to the venture’s pool of capital.
“We have been working with Korean developers and actively investing in the ecosystem for some time now, which helped us build a deeper understanding of the Korean market,” said Johnny B. Lee, general manager of games at Solana Foundation, in a statement. “Korea is at the forefront of web3 game design and development and we are focused on helping even more builders in Korea bring their ideas to reality.”
Lee added that gaming and NFTs make up the majority of the activity Solana is seeing in South Korea. While play-to-earn games have gained a reputation for being more like a job than a game as they have become an income source for many users, Lee predicts that more “high-quality and fun games” will launch on the Solana blockchain in the second half of this year and will potentially change the perception of play-to-earn games.
Despite the pushback from Web2 gamers and developers, Lee feels that blockchain games will see mass adoption like free-to-play mobile games did, especially with the rapid growth of Web3.
Besides capital, Solana Ventures will provide developers assistance with product and engineering, and will have advisors based in South Korea.
In other news, crypto hardware wallet company, Ledger, also announced today a $110 million Web3 fund through a combined entity called Ledger Cathay Capital, launched in partnership with venture capital firm, Cathay Innovation.
Ledger Cathay Capital is backed by French public investment bank, Bpifrance, and aims to accelerate Web3 innovation through resources, networks, and potential partnerships while maintaining security standards.
The entity is led by Cathay Innovation co-founder Denis Barrier, alongside Ledger’s Pascal Gauthier and Michael Louzado. The $110 million early-stage venture fund plans to make 20 to 25 investments in seed to Series A funding rounds with amounts ranging from $550,000 to $4.3 million.
Ledger Cathay Capital has devised a strategy to back protocols and native tokens as well as emerging DeFi security, infrastructure and digital ownership technologies, which Barrier and Gauthier see as a multi-decade investment opportunity.
The venture fund combines Ledger’s Web3 security expertise and Cathay’s extensive corporate ecosystem to give entrepreneurs and builders a secured and open platform to design next-generation Web3 services.
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