Huobi Group, the holding company of the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Huobi Global, has recently launched a new subsidiary geared towards decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and mergers and acquisitions.
In a Thursday press release shared with CryptoPotato, the company noted that it has already deployed $100 million to this new venture investment arm dubbed “Huobi Ventures.”
The ultimate goal of this new subsidiary of Huobi Group is to increase the company’s investment portfolio, provide several innovative blockchain-related projects with long-term support, in addition to mergers and acquisitions.
The press release also noted that the $100 million fund would provide support for new blockchain and DeFi projects over the next three years and expand the company’s product offerings.
“Acquisitions will be integrated into Huobi’s growing suite of blockchain-enabled applications and services to expand the business into new markets. The venture capital unit will make long-term investments in emerging blockchain use cases and DeFi projects,” the company said.
Huobi also revealed its interest in the rapidly growing area within the crypto industry — the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) market.
The company said its new venture investment arm would dedicate $10 million to create an NFT fund that will be used for investing in digital collectibles and its marketplace at large.
Despite the booming NFT market, Huobi’s CFO Lily Zhang noted that the company believes that the current market size is “only a fraction of what’s actually possible with NFTs.” The executive added that “we’ll see use cases increase across gaming, media, enterprise, and more in the near future.”
As per the press release, Huobi Ventures will merge several of Huobi’s other investment vehicles like the Huobi Eco Fund, Huobi Capital, and Huobi DeFi Labs.
“We’re very excited about this launch because this is the first time we’re consolidating our investment strategy. Venture investments and corporate acquisitions have always been a part of our long-term strategy, but with blockchain and digital asset adoption accelerating, the market is now primed for us to invest on a much larger scale,” Zhang added.
Huobi is the latest institutional investor to create an initiative that is focused on boosting the DeFi sector of the cryptocurrency industry.
Over the past few months, the DeFi space has witnessed tremendous growth, prompting several large institutional investors to launch DeFi development funds.
Huobi’s latest blockchain and DeFi development venture comes just a few weeks after Polygon, the easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development, launched a $100 million fund targeted at DeFi development.
Polygon plans to use the “DeFiforAll” fund to improve the accessibility of the DeFi ecosystem to more users within the next three years.