Dubai lures AI, Web3 enterprises with 90% subsidized commercial licenses

August 15, 2023 Coin Telegraph

In addition to attracting talent, Dubai has also given out operational licenses to crypto exchanges over the past several months.

The city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has started offering commercial licenses to artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3 businesses at a 90% subsidy as it works to create the largest cluster of new-age tech companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The Dubai AI and Web 3.0 Campus — an aspiring tech hub — announced the decision to subsidize the licenses for companies willing to set up a base in the city. The licenses will be issued by Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) as the city eyes an influx of global talent and diversified investors.

*DIFC’s newly-launched Innovation One building has physical offices and co-working spaces for registered AI and Web3 enterprises. Source: dubaiaicampus.com*

DIFC Innovation Hub CEO Mohammad Alblooshi shared:

“We are confident that by granting these licenses, we will attract more global talent and investment to the region and create a culture of collaboration and innovation.”

The campus comes equipped with technologies that complement the crowd it hopes to attract, which includes AI lab facilities and training programs, supporting hardware and accelerator programs.

*Dubai’s AI and Web3 license application form. Source: innovationhub.difc.ae*

Enterprises interested in signing up for subsidized commercial licenses must fill out a form. Further investigation from Cointelegraph revealed that the sign-up form did not acknowledge the form submission and redirected the users to the home page at the time of writing.

In addition to attracting talent, Dubai has also given out operational licenses to crypto exchanges. Earlier in August, Nomura’s crypto arm, Laser Digital Middle East, obtained an operating license from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority.

The new virtual asset service provider license would allow Laser Digital to offer broker-dealer and virtual asset management and investment services in the emirate.

Collect this article as an NFT to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.

AI startup by ex-Meta and Google researchers raises $113M in seed funding

June 14, 2023 Coin Telegraph

AI startup by ex-Meta and Google researchers raises 3M in seed funding

The company is on a hiring spree and on the lookout for researchers, software engineers and product developers in AI.

A brand new artificial intelligence (AI) startup dedicated to rival ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, raised $113 million in seed funding, bringing up its valuation to $260 million within two months of inception.

Former AI researchers — previously working for Google DeepMind and Meta — co-founded Mistral AI, in May 2023 to develop open-source generative AI models. Arthur Mensch, the co-founder and CEO of the company said that the first round of funding “will give us the resources and network we need to start rolling out a new model of generative artificial intelligence.”

Prior to co-founding Mistral AI, Mensch was a research scientist at Google Deep Mind. The other two co-founders — Timothee Lacroix and Guillaume Lample — worked at Facebook AI as a research engineer and research scientist respectively.

*Mistral AI co-founders Guillaume Lample, Arthur Mensch, Timothée Lacroix (left to right). Source: Medium*

The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and saw participation from JCDecaux Holding, Rodolphe Saadé and Motier Ventures among others. The trio will run the company from Paris and plan to release its first models for text-based generative AI in 2024.

*Mistral AI unfinished official website. Source: Mistra.AI*

The company is on a hiring spree and on the lookout for researchers, software engineers and product developers in AI. At the time of writing, the newly formed Mistral AI did not have any social media presence either.

Recently, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, met South Korean South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and urged the country to lead the manufacturing of chips dedicated to AI technology.

*OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shake hands at the Yongsan District, central Seoul presidential office on June 9.*

OpenAI currently utilizes chips from Taiwan, but Altman revealed the incoming need for a supply of chips from Korea in the future.

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Silicon Valley-based tech accelerator expands its digital asset vertical to France

April 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Plug and Play Tech Center will add crypto and digital assets to the list of verticals in its Paris office, where it will help startups network with consumer brands.

Plug and Play Tech Center, an accelerator based in California’s Silicon Valley, will expand its crypto and digital assets vertical to France, the company announced April 25.

Plug and Play has had a Paris location since 2016, where it engages with such verticals as retail, fintech, smart cities and sustainability. Paris is among Plug and Play’s over 50 offices in at least 20 countries. Plug and Play crypto and digital assets head Maximillian Jungreis said:

“I am thrilled to drive our expansion into new markets like France where Plug and Play has built a strong ecosystem alongside key players like L'Oréal, PVH, Lacoste, etc. during the past six years."

The French program will “help consumer businesses, retailers, and brands move from Web2 into Web3 by educating them […] and introducing them to bespoke partnerships,” according to the announcement. Plug and Play claims to have a network of over 500 corporate partners and 50,000 startups. Chainalysis and AVA Labs are among the Play and Plug alumni.

Plug and Play entered the crypto sector in 2013 with a Bitcoin (BTC) accelerator. It also began mining its own Bitcoin at that time. The Bitcoin accelerator became the foundation of the organization’s fintech vertical, from which crypto and digital assets were again spun off in 2022.

With how fast the world is changing, fostering an innovation culture is now crucial for businesses to stay competitive ➡️ https://t.co/wzR3Qe2ACY.#PNPTC #PNPTCCorporateInnovation #CorporateInnovation pic.twitter.com/iYdvFSRGUJ
— Plug and Play Tech Center (@PlugandPlayTC) April 26, 2023

France’s profile is rising in the crypto space. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao praised the country as “one of the most progressive and open-minded governments that could help in developing pro-crypto regulations” after the crypto exchange received approval as a digital asset service provider in May 2022. Binance said at the time that it intended to “significantly scale” its operations there.

Magazine: Why are crypto fans obsessed with micronations and seasteading?

Over 100 VCs, investors voice solidarity with Silicon Valley Bank

March 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Banks

Approximately 125 VCs and investors signed a statement supporting Silicon Valley Bank as a way to limit the fallout of the bank’s collapse and subsequent extinction of tech companies.

As the 40-year-old banking institution, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), winds down operation, numerous venture capitalists and investors joined hands and decided to cushion the impact in case the bank “were to be purchased and appropriately capitalized.”

Approximately 125 VCs and investors signed a statement supporting SVB as a way to limit the fallout of the bank’s collapse and subsequent extinction of tech companies. The venture firms included Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst.

Several VC leaders met today to discuss the aftermath of SVB’s downfall. This is a joint statement from all of us. @Accel @altcap @BCapitalGroup @generalcatalyst @eladgil @GreylockVC @khoslaventures @kleinerperkins @lightspeedvp @MayfieldFund @Redpoint @RibbitCapital @upfrontvc pic.twitter.com/7OtHq0zwT1
— Hemant Taneja (@htaneja) March 11, 2023

A group of investors for high-profile firms met over Zoom in a series of meetings, disclosed a Bloomberg report. Hemant Taneja, the CEO of General Catalyst, initially revealed the joint statement from several VCs, showing support for the bank. It read:

“In the event that SVB were to be purchased and appropriately capitalized, we would be strongly supportive and encourage our portfolio companies to resume their banking relationships with them.”

In parallel, startup incubator Y Combinator, too, posted a petition demanding “depositors to be made whole, and for regulation to prevent this catastrophe.”

Now about 2800 founders who have over 180,000 employees have signed.

About 44% of them are based outside of California.
— Garry Tan 陈嘉兴 (@garrytan) March 12, 2023

According to Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan, the petition — directed toward regulators including Secretary Janet Yellen and Chairman Martin Gruenberg — scored signatures from roughly 2800 founders and 180,000 employees at the time of writing.

“Everyone understands that we have a role to play in trying to calm the situation,” Taneja told Bloomberg. However, disputing this drive to save SVB, prominent Indian entrepreneur Ashneer Grover reminded Taneja that banks don’t get saved by passing bureaucratic, UN-type joint resolutions — taking a dig at the typical VC mindset of pouring money to fix a problem. “It requires intent and balls of steel!” he concluded.

Hours after USD Coin (USDC) lost its peg to the US dollar, unconfirmed reports about a resolution momentarily brought back the token’s prices to nearly $1.

*7-day chart of USDC/USD price. Source: CoinMarketCap*

Although the reports are currently unverified, multiple sources confirm that many different tracks to resolution are being worked on and that depositors will get back "at least 50% of their deposits" in the coming week.

Tech talent migrates to Web3 as large companies face layoffs

October 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Analysis

Web3 companies continue to hire amidst a bull market as tech giants undergo layoffs and hiring freezes.

As inflation continues to grow, coupled with a looming recession, many tech firms are having to cut portions of their staff. To put this in perspective, data from Layoffs.fyi found that over 700 tech startups have experienced layoffs this year, impacting at least 93,519 employees globally. It has also been reported that tech giants like Google, Netflix and Apple are undergoing massive job cuts.

While many of these layoffs are likely due to an economic downturn, this has resulted in an overwhelming amount of talent flocking to early-stage Web3 companies. For example, Andrew Masanto, a serial entrepreneur who has founded a number of startups, told Cointelegraph that he recently launched Nillion, a startup specializing in decentralized computation, to help ensure privacy and confidentiality for Web3 platforms.

Although Nillion is still in its early stages, the technological innovation behind the company has already proven to be appealing. Since the company’s inception in October this year, leading talent from companies like Nike, Indiegogo and Coinbase have joined the growing startup.

For instance, Slava Rubin, founder of the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, told Cointelegraph that he had recently joined Nillion as the company’s chief business officer based on the opportunity to join a startup with an innovative business model.

“The tech behind Nillion is massively innovative, as it focuses on advancing secure multiparty computation (MPC). MPC is known for being slow and unable to work for certain use cases. The risk of failure doesn’t concern me here since it’s such a huge opportunity to solve this problem,” he said.

The notion of building technology to advance MPC also attracted Lindsay Danas Cohen to Nillion. Cohen previously served as associate general counsel at Coinbase before joining Nillion this year as the company’s general counsel.

Although Coinbase announced in June that it was cutting its staff by 18%, Cohen explained in a recent blog post that she left Coinbase to join Nillion due to the opportunity to help advance privacy and data sharing through MPC. “This would be a true zero-to-one innovation,” she wrote.

While the crypto industry continues to face a bear market, it’s clear that the projects being built during this period are seen as an exciting opportunity. “I built Indiegogo during the 2008 bear market, and I think we will see the same thing in this market. In about three to five years, we will see some very strong companies emerge that know how to use capital efficiently,” Rubin remarked.

Indeed, well-funded Web3 companies continue to hire, while large tech companies face layoffs and hiring freezes. Sebastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, told Cointelegraph that the popular metaverse platform currently has a total of 103 job openings. “The excitement of working in the front row of Web3 is big, and we are enjoying this interest towards our open positions,” he said.

According to Borget, The Sandbox has grown to 404 employees this year, almost doubling in size from its 208-employee workforce it had in December 2021. Borget added that The Sandbox’s virtual real estate known as “LANDs” is now worth over $1 billion in total market cap.

Moreover, as Web3 companies continue to bring on both new and acquired talent, young jobseekers seem to be displaying a greater desire to obtain the skills needed to join these firms.

Priyanka Mathikshara Mathialagan, president of the Stanford Blockchain Club, told Cointelegraph that she has seen an increasing number of undergraduate students at Stanford taking blockchain-focused courses in preparation for careers after graduation.

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“This year, we had more students enrolled in professor Dan Boneh’s cryptography class than those enrolled in traditional computer science courses,” she remarked.

Despite the bear market, Mathialagan also believes that there have been significant improvements made within the Web3 space, resulting in a more positive outlook toward the sector. For example, she mentioned that the Ethereum Merge that took place on Sept. 15 has helped ensure a more energy-efficient platform, creating appeal for students that may want to leverage the Ethereum network for Web3 projects. Mathialagan added that while a numerous amount of theoretical research has been performed for years within fields like computer science, Ph.D. students are considering Web3 due to new opportunities for advancement. She said:

“The math used in theoretical computer science and cryptography is similar to the math needed to advance zero-knowledge proof-based applications. There is now an industry that wants to pay Ph.D. students for their research and put these findings to use. For example, there is a large demand for distributed system engineers since every single blockchain is really a distributed system. These are the people who can design consensus algorithms and new architectures for scalable and secure blockchains.”

This seems to be the case, as Masanto shared that Nillion has hired 10 engineers within the last six months. Borget added that The Sandbox is currently hiring 17 engineers, along with game designers, architects and other individuals capable of supporting brands building in the company’s metaverse.

Skepticism remains

While it’s notable that Web3 companies are actively hiring, a number of concerns remain. For instance, although companies remain focused on building during a bear market, fundraising may be problematic.

Given this, it’s important to point out that Nillion is currently being bootstrapped by its founding team. A spokesperson from Delphi Digital, a crypto-focused research firm, also told Cointelegraph that while the company is currently hiring across the board, no funds have been raised.

“We have been completely bootstrapped up until now.” While impressive, running a company based on personal finances or operating revenue may be concerning for job seekers. For instance, Mathialagan noted that students starting a career in Web3 want to be assured that the company will exist two to three years down the road.

Jessica Walker, chief marketing officer of Fluid Finance — a fintech company focused on revolutionizing banking with blockchain — further told Cointelegraph that it is a waiting game to see what companies have the strongest communities and teams capable of withstanding the crypto winter, adding:

“It’s important for organizations to build partnerships and roll out products, while also being able to budget their overhead costs during this time.”

Moreover, Mathialagan believes that it’s challenging for students, along with individuals within the Web2 sector, to get connected with Web3 companies. For instance, while companies like Nillion have brought on individuals from organizations like Coinbase, Indiegogo and Nike, Masanto shared that he already knew a handful of these people prior to hiring.

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Walker also remarked that due to the bear market, recruiters need to pay additional attention to detail when onboarding new team members. “Some uncertainty comes from new hires about the security of their role, especially during a bear market. At Fluid, we often try to hire from our community first,” she said.

Although strategic, Mathialagan mentioned that the Stanford Blockchain Club is compiling a list of job postings to help students connect better with Web3 firms as more hiring takes place: “For students, hiring remains the biggest single problem even beyond security issues faced by Web3 companies today.”

Coinbase CEO announces documentary on cryptocurrency and exchange

October 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Armstrong said that the documentary will capture “the good, bad, and ugly” of building a tech start-up from the ground up.

Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong announced in a series of tweets on Oct 4 that a crypto centric documentary capturing his journey of building a tech start-up from the ground up will be available this Friday on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Youtube, and other streaming platforms.

The documentary — “Coin: A Founder’s Story” — intends to pull back the curtain and show people what it's really like to build a tech company from the ground up and encourage others who want to do the same.

According to the CEO, documentary director Greg Kohs and his team had “unprecedented access” to Armstrong's company, capturing the crazy ups and downs over the span of the last three years. The announcement said that the documentary will capture “the good, bad, and ugly” of building a tech start-up from the ground up, to becoming a public company.

1/ Big announcement: we've been working with director Greg Kohs on a documentary about cryptocurrency and Coinbase over the last three years, and it will be coming out this Friday on Amazon Prime/iTunes/YouTube etc.

See the trailer here: https://t.co/JNAc2pjJPf
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) October 4, 2022

Armstrong shared, “I agreed to do this documentary because I wanted to demystify what it takes to build a tech startup and encourage more people to start companies. I also wanted to demystify crypto.”

The CEO also said he hopes to show that tech founders are just regular folk trying to create a product that people want, adding that “everyone working in crypto believes it can create a more fair, free, and global financial system.”

The CEO encouraged everyone to watch the film, including policymakers, as he believes it will help advance the cause of cryptocurrency, as well as show the motivations of many hard-working individuals steering the industry forward.

On Sept 26, Cointelegraph reported that blockchain company, Veritaseum was suing Coinbase for $320 million dollars in an alleged patent infringement case.

Crypto startup employee quits after realizing telltale signs of failure

March 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Offering NFT services without proper infrastructure and purchasing crypto at ATH purely based on popularity were the red flags for the Redditor.

The startup ecosystem has historically played a vital role in shaping the crypto community into an almost $2 trillion industry. However, numerous players bank on this notion to consistently overpromise and underdeliver the big WAGMI dream.

Back in December 2021, Redditor busterrulezzz thought they landed their dream job after being hired by a crypto startup — only to realize that they were now a part of the problem and resigned from the position two months later.

*Redditor u/busterrulezzz: Source: Reddit*

As narrated by busterrulezzz:

“First of all, the level of disorganization and chaos was absolute madness. Each morning we had a different objective, based on the most recent trend in the market.”

The Redditor alleged that the crypto startup, which shall remain unnamed due to an active non-disclosure agreement, did everything that crypto investors are usually advised against. This included offering NFT services without proper infrastructure, purchasing cryptocurrencies at their all-time highs purely based on their popularity. Paraphrasing the company’s agenda, busterrulezzz stated:

“One of our products doesn't work anymore because we rushed a bug-fixing patch? Let's pretend that never happened and let's keep pushing rosy marketing articles!”

Soon after joining the team, the Redditor realized that a business cannot be profitable or a productive member of the crypto ecosystem “if you can't even define your objectives and stick to it.”

The Redditor further alleged that the startup proactively misled and cheated investors by using bots to run official Telegram channels, faking community users on Discord and partnering with influencers to make their products seem popular, adding that:

“This kind of stuff is what gives crypto its bad reputation to the outside world.”

One of the biggest red flags the new employee noticed were the founders, who were allegedly only interested in making the most amount of money as soon as possible:

“We were acting like an evil hedge fund, precisely the type of institution crypto is supposed to fight.”

With this alleged realization, busterrulezzz now felt like a scammer and ended up quitting their job. Conveniently enough, the company did not pay salary for the last week for absconding. The Reddit community, however, wants them to lawyer up to get the NDA nullified and retrieve the pending payment. “Thanks for the advice, I will look into it,” they concluded.

Despite the unpleasant experience, the Redditor advises the community to join well-known crypto enterprises and “not waste your time in little-known start-ups that have big dreams, but can't deliver.”

Readers are also advised to do their due diligence about the company founders and roadmap prior to accepting job invitations. While the story highlights the alleged inner workings of a fraudulent crypto startup, some of the biggest players in crypto come from humble backgrounds including Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume.

On the other end of the spectrum, government organizations have finally acknowledged the importance of hiring experts from within the crypto ecosystem.

As Cointelegraph reported, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently posted job openings on LinkedIn seeking a head of the digital assets department and a director of the payments and digital assets department.

The new role is part of FCA’s plan to establish a dedicated department for crypto, the announcement notes:

“We are looking for a head of department to build and lead a new crypto department that will lead and coordinate the FCA’s regulatory activity in this emerging market. This is a critical leadership role within a proposed new directorate dealing with emerging business models [...]”

Blockchain startups grow as global VC funding generated $25.2B in 2021

February 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain startups grow as global VC funding generated .2B in 2021

Andreessen Horowitz

A 713% increase in venture capital funding went to global blockchain startups last year, but will this trend continue?

Last year was impressive for blockchain startups, as research from CB Insights found that venture capital funding reached new heights during every quarter of 2021. According to CB Insights’ “State Of Blockchain 2021” report, $25.2 billion worth of venture capital funding went to global blockchain startups last year, demonstrating a 713% increase from $3.1 billion in 2020.

The report also found that the United States led the greatest amount of funding deals in Q4 of last year, generating $6.26 billion for 157 deals. The document notes that global growth was driven by increasing consumer and institutional demand for crypto-related products and services.

VC funding focused on crypto adoption

Chris Bendtsen, a senior analyst at CB Insights, told Cointelegraph that CB Insights’ report contains data aggregated from private marketing funding from over 3,000 blockchain and crypto companies that the firm regularly tracks. Bendtsen further explained that while the title of the report references blockchain, this serves as an overarching category that includes cryptocurrency, nonfungible tokens (NFT), enterprise blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi). Bendtsen pointed out that the majority of VC funding mentioned throughout the report was allocated to crypto-focused startups. The report states:

“Over $100M mega-rounds (worth $100m+) were the driving force behind blockchain’s record funding year. The 59 mega-rounds in 2021 accounted for just 5% of total deals but 60% of total funding. The biggest mega-round deals went to crypto exchanges, brokerages, NFTs, gaming, and payments.”

According to the report, $1 out of every $4 worth of funding went to crypto exchanges and brokerages, which also equates to a quarter of all global blockchain funding in 2021. Bendtsen remarked that while the biggest deals went to major crypto exchanges such as FTX — which ranked as the second-largest equity deal for brokerages and exchanges in Q4 of 2021 — funding for country-specific exchanges has also been on the rise.

For instance, CoinSwitch Kuber, one of the largest crypto trading platforms in India, ranked No. 4 for top equality deals for brokerages and exchanges in Q4 of 2021, generating over $260 million in its recent Series C funding round. “Based on these findings, it’s become evident that we are seeing the globalization of crypto, as more country-specific exchanges are raising impressive rounds,” said Bendtsen.

Bendtsen further pointed out that global VC funding for crypto custody and wallet providers reached $6.3 billion last year. “Toward the beginning of 2021, a lot of funding was going to consumer-driven exchanges, but there was a shift later in the year that saw major funding rounds go to crypto custody providers and custodians,” he remarked.

For example, the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) ranked as the top equity deal in Q4 of 2021 under the category of custody and wallet providers. In December 2021, the institution specializing in Bitcoin (BTC) financial services secured a $1-billion equity investment led by WestCap Group. Fireblocks, the digital asset custody platform, ranked directly under NYDIG with its $550-million raise from Sequoia Capital.

Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks, told Cointelegraph that he believes investors are paying more attention to custody and wallet providers because this has been the biggest barrier to entry for institutional participation. “Having a direct custody solution and technologies that can plug and play into the crypto capital markets is a game-changer for businesses and individuals alike,” he said.

“Our investors see us as the picks and shovels of the crypto industry. This includes everything from direct custody wallets and settlement networks to compliance integrations with Chainalysis and Elliptic, along with access to staking providers.”

In regard to the company’s latest funding round, Shaulov said that Fireblocks plans to expand its offerings to include securing high-value transactions around DeFi and NFTs. This is important, especially now as the number of scams and fraudulent activities within the DeFi and NFT sectors has increased.

Although criminal activity within the NFT space has started to quickly unfold, the CB Insights report found that funding allocated to NFT startups grew by a margin of 130 times. In 2020, NFT startups generated $37 million in VC funding, which reached $4.8 billion in 2021. “Gaming, marketplaces, and infrastructure are the top 3 NFT categories driving the funding craze,” the report highlighted.

Animoca Brands, which ranked as the No. 1 investor by company count in Q4 of 2021 according to CB Insights, made at least 49 investments in blockchain projects last year. Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, told Cointelegraph that NFT and blockchain gaming overall were major drivers of the growth in funding last year:

“We have always believed that NFTs, and in particular gaming, are key to the mass adoption of blockchain, and I think what happened in 2021 strongly suggests that this thesis will be realized in 2022. It’s interesting to note that in 2021, many new blockchain users entered the world of crypto not because of cryptocurrencies but because they were seeking to acquire NFTs.”

Traditional VCs take an interest

In addition to where funds are going, Bendtsen noted that the CB Insights report found that more traditional investors started taking interest in blockchain startups last year:

“Over the course of 2021, Andreessen Horowitz jumped out as a smart-money investor. They are one of the biggest VC firms in the world and announced a huge crypto-focused fund in June of last year.”

As Cointelegraph previously reported in June 2021, the Silicon Valley venture firm launched “Crypto Fund III,” a $2.2-billion venture fund co-led by Andreessen Horowitz general partners Chris Dixon and Katie Haun. According to the CB Insights report, Andreessen Horowitz was ranked as the No. 3 blockchain investor in 2021, falling under Coinbase Ventures and China’s AU21. “Our numbers show that Andreessen Horowitz invested in 46 blockchain startups last year, the third-most of any investor out there, including the crypto-focused funds. This shows that we are seeing more traditional firms coming into the crypto space,” remarked Bendtsen.

While this may be, Siu noted that Andreessen Horowitz has had a much longer history with blockchain investments. For instance, the venture firm invested in blockchain-company Dfinity in 2018. As such, Siu remarked that while Andreessen Horowitz isn’t new to the space, the company did ramp up its investments in Web3 startups throughout 2021.

“It is very clear that A16z and other major investors like Sequoia China understand the enormous potential of Web3 and of the value that the application of blockchain can deliver, and they are investing accordingly,” he said. Given this, Siu believes that more well-known venture capitalists and firms will continue to invest in blockchain startups, particularly those innovating with NFTs.

Will crypto price volatility impact funding?

While recent growth for blockchain startups has been impressive, crypto price volatility and unclear regulations may create challenges for companies looking to raise funds in the future. For instance, rising inflation in the United States may further impact the price of Bitcoin. Also, unclear regulations around NFTs could be detrimental for new companies entering the space.

Although these challenges should be carefully considered, Bendtsen explained that none of the data recently generated from CB Insights indicates any type of slowing down for funding. “The fact is that these investors view crypto as a long-term play. I, therefore, don’t think the lower crypto prices today will affect startup funding in the future.” Shaulov added that he believes there will be growing agreement around cryptocurrency regulation around the world, which will ultimately fuel retail and institutional adoption.

tech startups

Skepticism remains

VC funding focused on crypto adoption

Traditional VCs take an interest

Will crypto price volatility impact funding?

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