Ella Zhang, head of the exchange’s incubator program Binance Labs, said during an online meetup Thursday that the capital for the fund will be coming from Binance’s own reserves as a way to contribute to the industry ecosystem.
Binance will pour in the $1 billion over 10 phases of $100 million each and, in essence, will create a combination of a fund of funds (a fund that invests in other funds) and a direct fund that invests in blockchain projects.
For the fund of funds, the incubator chief further explained that Binance is seeking 20 funds to invest in, which each must manage a pool of at least $100 million in order to be eligible. Investments will be made through Binance’s own BNB token, she said.
The first project to be supported is a blockchain-powered ride-hailing initiative that was recently announced by Chen Weixing, CEO of app developer Funcity and former founder of Chinese ride-hailing app Kuaidi Dache. As previously reported, Chen revealed the initiative at a Big Data expo in Guizhou, China, last week together with Yang Jun, co-founder of Meituan, one of the largest group discount apps in China.
Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced it is launching a $1 billion «Social Impact Fund» to foster the growth of blockchain and cryptocurrency startups.
«We believe it’s a disruptive social experiment. Binance Labs hopes to work with more aspirational projects to explore blockchain applications and together move forward the growth of the industry,» Zhang said.