Binance’s VC Arm Announces New Boss and New Vision

Measured by Assets Under Management (AUM), Binance Labs is the largest crypto Venture Capital organization in the industry with total assets of $7.5 billion and more than 200 portfolio projects. Since its inception, Binance Labs’ investment strategy has focused on early-stage projects in key verticals.

The company says this strategy has delivered a 2100% rate of return since inception and has seen Binance Labs incubate some of the industry’s most successful projects, including Polygon, FTX, Certik, Nym, and Dune Analytics.

The announcement that Binance co-founder Yi He will take the helm of Binance Labs indicates the importance the company places on the success of its VC division, particularly as the wider crypto sector struggles to gain momentum after the failure of the Terra/UST project, and a capitulation of the Bitcoin Price.

In such an environment, Yi has identified founder resilience as a critical factor in Binance Labs’ investment decision making process. "Part of the journey of seeing Binance grow," she says, "especially through tough market conditions, has been the ability to identify those founders that have the skills and embody the values needed to thrive in an environment where resources are more limited. As a leading player in the space, my goal is to help define the industry standard by identifying and supporting sustainable projects and building an ecosystem of quality blockchain solutions that empowers the entire industry."

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has been widely quoted as seeing the current crypto downturn as a rarely seen opportunity for wide-ranging strategic acquisition and investment, and he sees Yi’s skill set as right for the time. “Yi has been actively involved in Labs since its inception," he says, "and has played a pivotal role in identifying early-stage projects and founders with the vision and drive to disrupt those global institutions that no longer serve society effectively. This is the perfect moment for Yi to take on a larger role in Labs as this market presents an unparalleled opportunity to identify those projects with the tenacity to thrive in tough market conditions."

Interestingly, Binance is looking at large scale Web3 adoption as a foregone conclusion in the next five years, but Yi says this can only become a reality if Web3 products are able to weave seamlessly into users’ lives. She adds that her focus will be on supporting infrastructure projects and improving utility in innovative crypto and blockchain projects.

“To expedite widespread adoption, we need to focus our resources on supporting those projects that will push the boundaries of Web3 technology and create products that provide solutions to real-world problems,” she says.

Binance Labs has recently closed a $500 million investment fund which includes participation from global institutional investors such as DST Global Partners and Breyer Capital. Some of the latest portfolio companies and key projects include pStake and Ultiverse.