Former Binance executives launch $100M crypto fund

A group of ex-Binance executives have created a $100 million venture fund.

Old Fashion Research was founded in late 2021, by managing partners Ling Zhang, who was previously the vice president of M&A and investments at Binance, and Wayne Fu, who was previously the director of investor relations.

The fund will focus on the metaverse and bring greater adoption to emerging markets like Latin America and Africa.

We want to work with builders for the long run.

FTX, Multi coin Capital, and CertiK were all acquired by Zhang while he was at Binance.

The capital was raised by limited partners, traditional VC funds, family offices, and angel investors both inside and outside of thecryptocurrencies, with global gaming platform WEMIX leading the investment.

The project was in stealth mode until today, but has invested in over 50 projects to date.

We believe web3 will be the first step to change our identities.

The OFR venture arm will be supported by partner Jiang Xin, who was the CEO of Binance Labs, as well as a strategic adviser and investor of OFR, which is the former CFO of Binance.

The market conditions have cooled down a bit since the beginning of the year and we think it is more of an opportunity than a challenge for OFR.

She said that she has seen a growing interest of funds coming into the space or new funds launching to invest in the space after seeing the potentials of the technology.

More and more VCs are looking for ways to invest in cryptocurrencies. It is no longer a top-down approach.

The fourth fund from the company was announced earlier this week. One-third of the mega-fund will be dedicated to seed deals.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of mega-funds launched into the space, which shows that even though markets might be down, venture capitalists are taking advantage of the sentiment and continuing to invest in the space.

When asked if the market's bearish sentiment will scare traditional firms away from continuing their investments, a16z general partner Arianna Simpson said that it's likely other firms will pull back.

Market downturns allow investors to deploy capital into the space with clarity on which bets to make.

This is the best time to identify the long-term believers in the space and to make investments and incubate more projects.

Money, meet mouth