Former Huobi Exec Launches $25M Fund Seeking to Bridge CeFi, DeFi and the Metaverse

A former executive at crypto exchange Huobi has launched the inaugural fund of a little-known venture capital firm backed by some of the industry’s top institutions.

OP Crypto Capital Management Ltd., formed two months ago and announced Monday by the former senior investment director of Huobi Capital, David Gan, aims to bridge centralized and decentralized finance with the metaverse.

Gan was also recently the former managing director of Huobi Labs, the exchange’s blockchain incubator that began in 2017.

The firm is backed by Huobi Ventures, Galaxy Digital’s Vision Hill, Bybit investment arm Mirana Ventures, The Brooker Group and Digital Currency Group, the parent company of CoinDesk.

OP Crypto says it plans to achieve its lofty goal by investing in projects it believes will help shape the future of corporate governance and transfer power from centralized entities to content creators in the upcoming Web 3.0 ecosystem.

Gan told CoinDesk in an interview the firm’s fund had targeted a soft cap of around $25 million but was oversubscribed by an as yet undetermined amount that “should end up well above the initial soft cap mark.”

OP Crypto Capital aims to help founders build projects during their earliest stages. Gan, who is the fund’s founder, said he would work with, incubate and assist projects during their earliest pre-seed rounds.

“OP crypto looks to ... fill the void left by some of biggest funds that are no longer interested in investing at the earliest stage,” Gan said.

Assistance by the firm and its fund includes helping a budding project with its product-market fit, token economics and talent acquisition, among others with a focus on “bridging the gap” between the “Eastern and Western markets.”

“There currently lacks a crypto venture capital firm here in the U.S. that has very in-depth ties to the Asia markets, being that I am the only solo Chinese general partner coming out of a major tier 1 exchange,” said Gan. “The fund’s current team members bring experience and deep relationships at several exchanges, including Huobi, Binance, OKEx in addition to Republic and CoinList.”

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