Luno Launches Venture Capital Firm Arm to Invest in Web3 Startups
The investment arm will fund between 200-300 startups annually and diversify beyond crypto into the broader fintech space.
The fund will invest between $50,000 to $250,000 and dig out between $15 million to $75 million yearly which essentially means an investment between $50 million to $300 million range will be committed when looking at typical investment periods of funds of around three-four years.
CEO Jocelyn Cheng will spearhead this new project as she leads an all-female team of five. She has prior experience in investing in the startup industry over the last six years as the managing director at Global Innovation Fund, an impact investment VC.
“There are very few truly global and very early-stage fintech funds in the world; we see an exciting opportunity here to build one. The reason why it’s not just pure crypto is that over the past few years, as operators scaling some of the largest crypto businesses in the world, we have noticed that there is such a strong intersection between some of the traditional fintechs and crypto,” said Cheng.
Venture Capital Firms Bullish on Crypto Companies
Earlier last year, leading venture capital firms such as Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz have launched crypto funds upto $2.2 billion and $3 billion respectively. Additionally, there have been more crypto funds from Hack VC, Electric Capital, Crypto.com, and Inflection, all launched within the last three months.
Luno Expeditions has already invested in 20 crypto and fintech companies such as Nala, a Tanzanian remittance solution; Oraan, a digital bank for Pakistani women; Notabene, a crypto compliance solution in Israel. Others include African crypto exchange platform Busha and fintechs Stitch and Root.