The Nervos Foundation and China Merchants Bank International (CMBI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Merchants Bank, launched a $50 million venture capital fund to invest in blockchain startups.
Why it matters: The fund will look for startups with plans to integrate in the Nervos ecosystem. This will help the blockchain network grow.
- The fund is also the first joint investment vehicle between a bank and a Chinese public blockchain startup.
Details: The fund, dubbed InNervation, will invest in early and growth-stage startups globally, focusing on decentralized applications (dapps), decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, distributed ledger platforms, and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, according to a press release.
- Asked about InNervation’s investment strategy, Nervos co-founder Kevin Wang also pointed to “a lot of interesting emerging use cases at the intersection of DeFi and NFTs, like using NFTs as collateral for decentralized lending products.”
- The capital will be distributed over three years, with investments from $200,000 to $2 million.
We’re not in this for quick returns so it’s difficult to say when we expect to see ROI on the projects we invest in. […] Many of the investments made will be strategic to the Nervos ecosystem, so we’re taking a longer-term approach.
Nervos co-founder, Kevin Wang
Context: Backed by major investors, Nervos is one of the most respected Chinese startups working on “layer one” blockchain technology. Layer one refers to basic architecture that can support a range of blockchain applications.
- It has received $100 million in six funding rounds, data from Crunchbase says. Investors include Sequoia China, and some of the country’s best-known blockchain funds, including Wanxiang Blockchain and Hashkey Capital.
- Nervos’s partners include major blockchain projects like the Blockchain Services Network, oracle provider Chainlink, and crypto wallet RenrenBit.
- Hong Kong-based CMBI has invested in Nervos through the CKB token, Nervos’s native cryptocurrency, The Block reported. The two partnered in 2019 to develop dapps for financial services.
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