May 27, 2022
By Murtuza Merchant
A group of former executives from one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchanges Binance has created a $100 million venture fund, according to company officials.
Old Fashion Research (OFR) was founded in late 2021 by managing partners Ling Zhang, who was formerly the vice president of M&A and investments at Binance, and Wayne Fu, former head of corporate development at the crypto exchange.
The fund will focus on bringing greater crypto adoption to growing markets like Latin America and Africa.
“We are very Southern Hemisphere-focused. … We’ll go after all of the emerging markets, but it’s our goal and vision to accelerate adoption there,” Zhang told TechCrunch.
To date, the project was operating in stealth mode but has invested in over 50 blockchain projects, including blockchain analytics platform Nansen, trading platform WOO Network, move-to-earn NFT game Genopets, and Africa’s largest gaming community, Metaverse Magna.
Wei Zhou, the former CFO at Binance, will act as a strategic adviser and investor of OFR, and partner Jiang Xin will support the venture arm, who led Binance Labs’ and Launchpad’s major investment deals such as Axie Infinity, Moonbeam, Alpha Finance, and others.
“The market conditions have cooled down a bit since the beginning of the year and we’re thinking it is more of an opportunity than a challenge for OFR,” Xin said.
Earlier this week, Andreessen Horowitz announced another crypto-focused fund for $4.5 billion.
In recent times, many mega-funds got launched into the crypto market, which was down, venture capitalists are taking advantage of the sentiments and continuing to invest in the space.
About the author
Murtuza Merchant is a senior journalist and an avid follower of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
