A group of former executives from Binance, has created a $100 million venture fund. The collective effort has resulted in the establishment of the Old Fashion Research (OFR) venture fund. Ling Zhang, who was a former vice president of mergers and acquisitions and investments at Binance, Wayne Fu, who was a former head of corporate development at Binance, and Wei Zhou, who was the company’s former chief financial officer, are all members of this firm. Even while all emerging markets are on OFR’s radar, the company’s primary objective and focus will be to speed up the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Latin America and Africa.
Why the market downturn is “perfect timing” for OFR
Founded in the latter half of 2021, OFR has been working under the radar up until now. In spite of this, it has already put money into more than 50 different blockchain initiatives. This demonstrates its enormous growth ambitions. For instance, in addition to the blockchain analytics platform Nansen and the trading platform WOO Network, OFR has also invested in the move-to-earn NFT game Genopets and Africa’s largest gaming community, Metaverse Magna.
OFR was able to raise its cash through limited partners, traditional venture capital firms, family offices, and angel investors. Furthermore, these investors are from both within and outside of the crypto ecosystem. Worldwide gaming platform WEMIX led the investment into OFR. Wei Zhou is going to work for OFR as a strategic adviser and investor. On the other hand partner Jiang Xin is going to lead the company’s venture arm. Xin once led the main investment deals for both Binance Labs and Launchpad, including Axie Infinity, Moonbeam, and Alpha Finance.
In the past few weeks, a number of mega-funds have been launched into the crypto space. This demonstrates that VCs are taking advantage of the bearish sentiments and continue to invest in the space even when the markets may be falling. Zhang believes that the current moment is the best time to identify firms with long-term commitment to the cryptocurrency industry. He also sees this as the optimal time to make investments and incubate additional ideas.
Xin is of a similar opinion as Zhang, stating, “Since [the fund] is newly started, we can find cheaper and more reasonable valuations during the