Animoca Brands slashes Web3 fund target to US$1B: Bloomberg

Animoca Brands Corp., a Hong Kong-based blockchain game maker and venture capitalist, has scaled down the target amount for its Web 3.0 and metaverse investment fund to US$1 billion from the initial goal of up to US$2 billion, according to Bloomberg.

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The company is raising around US$1 billion for its new Web3 fund within Q1 of this year, Animoca Chairman Yat Siu said during a Twitter Spaces chat hosted by Bloomberg.
The fund, Animoca Capital, aims to support the growth of startups in Web3, or the next generation of internet technology focused on decentralization, often through blockchain.
The collapse of the Bahamas-based bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.com, severely hit about a dozen of Animoca’s investments, including the long-awaited non-fungible token (NFT) game, Star Atlas, Siu said, according to Bloomberg.
Despite the shock from FTX, Siu said several Animoca subsidiaries have raised capital, and the interest in crypto still exists.
“The biggest damage with FTX was not so much financial … it was more of a reputational damage and an institutional damage, and in particular, an institutional American damage,” Siu said in a December interview with Forkast.
FTX, once the world’s second-largest exchange, filed for bankruptcy in November after revelations of misappropriation and poor disclosure of company assets, affecting other major crypto players such as Genesis and Gemini.