KuCoin Ventures, who are the venture capital arm of leading global cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, have announced that they are launching a $100 million “Creators Fund”.
The fund has been launched in conjunction with Windvane, which is the new decentralised NFT marketplace, also powered by KuCoin. It will aim to become a cross-chain aggregator and one-stop shopping spot for the world’s NFTs. The platform will provide features such as NFT minting, storage, trading and other services.
It’s the latest move by KuCoin to embrace the Wed 3.0 space. However, the scale of the ambition here regarding Windvane is particularly large. The marketplace’s plan to support multiple blockchains will no doubt be a big boon to both investors and creators, as the segmented world of NFTs thus far has created many barriers and divided the market.
A quick look, for example, on Magic Eden (leading Solana NFT marketplace) will see derivative projects of blue-chip Ethereum collections such as Bored Ape Solana Club (instead of Bored Ape Yacht Club) and SOLPunks (instead of the iconic CryptoPunks). These are commonly seen as a homage rather than an imitation, but do indicate the fragmented landscape of the current NFT environment.
Creators Fund
The $100 million Creators Fund will support and incubate start-up NFT projects across a wide range of Web 3.0 sectors: arts, sports, celebrities, and GameFi, just to name a few. The fund will also allow access for 99 outstanding NFT creators to join Windvane.
Strong teams, innovative visions, and concrete roadmaps all equate to a promising project, but these things need investment to deliver on that promise. This is where the Creators Fund will come in, helping young artists and creators bootstrap themselves up in an increasingly competitive NFT landscape, where funding can be tough to secure.
“KuCoin NFT Marketplace – Windvane is an emerging marketplace. With its user-first and community-driven mission, Windvane will support Web 3.0 creators globally to revolutionize the NFT industry”, Justin Chou, Chief Investment Officer at KuCoin Ventures, said, “we are thrilled to partner with Windvane to launch the $100 Million ‘Creators Fund’, which we believe would benefit users, creators, communities, and project founders in the Web 3.0 world.”
They haven’t taken long to get off the ground, either. Yesterday, it was announced that the first investment from the Creators Fund had occurred, a $1 million package to SakuraVerse, a Web 3.0 game infrastructure that develops and incubates multi-category games.
KuCoin
For KuCoin as a whole, it marks yet another step in its rapid expansion. Launched scarcely 5 years ago, it is now the fifth biggest exchange per CoinMarketCap rankings, with 2.4 million visits to its website (and that excludes mobile browsing). Their range of products is extensive – including staking, lending, derivatives trading and P2P fiat trading. And their expansion is not slowing down.
