Arcane Ventures Investment Landscape Exploring New Consumer Paradigms in the Web3 Era

Reimagining the Web3 Era Arcane Ventures Explores the Evolving Investment Landscape and Shifting Consumer Paradigms

Arcane Ventures has disclosed investments in 31 projects, covering five major tracks: IP/Creator platforms, blockchain games/metaverse, infrastructure, DeFi, and community.

Written by: angelilu, Foresight News

In 2022, “metaverse” ranked second in Oxford’s Word of the Year shortlist. The metaverse, minus the “hype,” has attracted the attention of many venture capitalists, and blockchain games, IP, and NFTs under the metaverse concept have also gained popularity. Head funds and traditional financial institutions quickly responded to this trend. In 2022, SLianGuairtan Group, HSBC, and Invesco, among other institutions, have launched billion-dollar metaverse funds. And this trend continues. In March of this year, game-focused venture capital firm Bitkraft also launched a token fund worth around $220 million, investing in blockchain games and digital entertainment.

Born in the “Year of the Metaverse”

• LianGuai Morning News | Spot BTC ETF expected to be approved from January 5th to 10th next year, signs of initial recovery in DeFi and NFT markets.
• Sui Network Skyrockets to $150 Million Total Value Locked, Surpassing Bitcoin
• 🤩 The US Cryptocurrency Conundrum: Regulating in Chaos 😱

Of course, newly established venture capital funds are also actively deploying resources. Arcane Ventures, founded in the “Year of the Metaverse,” has been deeply involved in Asia’s blockchain technology and cutting-edge technology fields. Its current AUM has reached $200 million, and the team’s strength should not be underestimated. Its co-founder Neil Su previously served as the Investment Director of private equity firm Bond Capital LianGuairtners, and Arcane’s other partner Evans Huangfu previously served as the Head of Huobi Ventures, the strategic investment department of Huobi Group, making him the youngest leader in Huobi Ventures history.

For a young venture capital firm like Arcane Ventures, its investment landscape is starting to emerge, but its investment strategy can already be seen:

Focusing on the “Web3 New Consumer” sector

After in-depth analysis of the 31 projects invested by Arcane Ventures, it can be found that its investments primarily cover virtual IP, blockchain games/metaverse, infrastructure, DeFi, and community. Arcane Ventures did not adopt the “casting a wide net” strategy preferred by most investment institutions, and from the distribution of investment quantity, it is not difficult to see that Arcane Ventures’ investment focus is still on virtual IP and blockchain games/metaverse, as well as user-friendly infrastructure in the “Web3 New Consumer” sector.

Arcane partner Evans Huangfu said, “In recent years, the blockchain industry has gradually expanded from a finance industry dominated by engineers to a consumer industry that is more user-friendly. We are committed to promoting the development of the blockchain industry in a more popular direction in order to ensure that more people can benefit from this innovative technology.”

This investment strategy is not without reason. With the popularization of blockchain technology and the widespread adoption of Web3, Web3 will become the new norm in the digital age, and the consumer entertainment industry plays a crucial role in this process. Moreover, the integration of Web3 and the consumer entertainment industry has natural advantages. NFTs and digital collectibles can become catalysts for product innovation, while the application of metaverse and virtual IP subverts the traditional rules of brand marketing, elevating the brand’s image from a single identifier to a vibrant presence in virtual space. With the support of decentralized technology, native Web3 consumer entertainment can give users true digital ownership and control, truly putting users at the center and deepening the bond between platforms and users, brands and consumers.

Emphasizing synergistic efficiency

While focusing on investing in the new consumer field of Web3, Arcane also emphasizes the synergistic effects between investment projects. In other words, when Arcane invests, it doesn’t just focus on the value of a single project, but values its cooperation within the overall business strategy. From its investment portfolio, it can be seen that Arcane is still involved in many infrastructure projects. This is because they realize that all types of projects need the push of “infrastructure” projects. Here, Arcane plays an important role as a connector and intermediary, assisting upstream and downstream enterprises in establishing connections.

For example, privacy protection is becoming increasingly important in the process of Web3. Arcane has made early arrangements and added Polyhedra to its investment portfolio. This project focuses on zero-knowledge proof DID and can provide long-term privacy solutions for Arcane’s other investment projects, ensuring the security and commercialization of user data.

In addition, Arcane is building a complete ecosystem around the most valued Web3 new consumer field. To help more Web2 industry talents enter Web3, Arcane’s investment portfolio includes projects like LianGuairticle Network and OpenFort, which can help developers reduce entry barriers.

Arcane partner Evans Huangfu said, “Teams from Web2 can rely on LianGuairticle Network’s authentication services for Web3 development, including social login, custom user interfaces, secure hosting, and fast transactions. LianGuairticle Network’s services bridge the gap for these teams from Web2 to Web3. OpenFort, on the other hand, provides a ‘wallet-as-a-service’ software product for other projects, customizing account abstractions for chain gaming products.”

The gaming/entertainment projects invested by Arcane can utilize the advertising network of LianGuaiss3 to expand in the Southeast Asian market. Another investment project, blockchain game and game infrastructure layer Fusionist, can simultaneously focus on its own development and cooperative promotion. Fusionist’s mainnet Endurance has accumulated over 1.5 million wallet addresses and maintains over 100,000 daily active addresses, so deploying Arcane’s chain gaming projects on Endurance can greatly improve the speed of promotion.

Arcane also values the synergy between IP companies and blockchain gaming. For example, the IP acquired by Kasagi Labo, a Japanese IP company under the Arcane umbrella, can be integrated into Arcane’s blockchain gaming projects, maximizing resource sharing and liquidity.

Here is a comprehensive list of the 31 investment projects disclosed by Arcane Ventures, delving deeper into its layout in the “Web3 New Consumer” era.

Investment Project OverviewIP & Creator Platforms

Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands is a blockchain game and digital collectible developer and publisher. Before venturing into blockchain games in 2018, Animoca Brands was already listed in Australia with traditional mobile game development as its core business. Its flagship products since 2018 include sandbox game The Sandbox and NFT project Mocaverse. In addition to blockchain game development, Animoca Brands is also an early investor in metaverse projects and blockchain game development studios such as Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, Decentraland, and Dapper Labs.

Yuga Labs

Yuga Labs is a blockchain technology company that develops NFTs and digital collectibles. Its first product is the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT. In addition, Yuga Labs has acquired blue-chip NFT projects such as CryptoPunks and Meebits. Yuga Labs has also launched its own cryptocurrency ApeCoin and developed metaverse projects such as Otherside and strategy game LoTM.

Outland NFT

Outland NFT is a platform for encrypted art, founded by the core executives of art institutions, galleries, and museums. The website contains content such as critiques, collections, conversations, news, and recommendations, bringing together criticism and dialogue about art, technology, and NFTs.

RepubliK

RepubliK is a Web3 creator platform that allows content creators to connect with their audience on the platform and utilize built-in smart contracts to handle monetization processes, enabling content creators to create, connect, and earn rewards. The protocol was launched in November 2022 and recently completed a $6 million seed funding round with a valuation of $75 million.

Kasagi Labo

Kasagi Labo is a publishing and licensing company that specializes in producing animations, comics, and TV shows. It acquires intellectual property rights and transforms original IPs into authorized anime merchandise.

EMERGE Group

EMERGE Group is a market technology firm that specializes in providing optimal monetization solutions for content creators, intellectual property owners, ad inventory, and brand development. In the Web3 space, it has established a strategic partnership with Web3 game publisher Immutable Games for marketing activities.

Chain Games / Metaverse

Fusionist

Fusionist is a blockchain game and game infrastructure layer that currently supports Ethereum and BNB Chain. In January of this year, Fusionist launched the mainnet Endurance. The game includes three game types: simulation building, turn-based tactics, exploration, and expansion. Players take on the role of mech commanders, manage their own planets, collect rare resources, upgrade technology, engage in PvP and PvE battles, and establish interstellar fleets for interstellar war.

Stella Fantasy

Stella Fantasy is a role-playing collectible NFT action RPG game. Its developer, Ring Games, was founded in 2019 by former core developers of the popular game “King’s Raid”. They are committed to developing new high-precision action games and other Web3 games.

Puffverse

Puffverse is a fantasy metaverse, a casual party game created with dreamy 3D cartoon imagery. It was invested in by Xiaomi and launched on the Xiaomi app store. The product includes Puff NFT, the multiplayer online game PuffGo, the metaverse and UGC platform PuffWorld, wallet integration, the Web3 control panel PuffTown, and the UGC PuffLand used for game design. The economic model includes the tokens PUFF and vePUFF, where PUFF is the circulating token and vePUFF is the governance token.

Unlike other chain games, Puffverse aims to connect Web 3 and Web 2. In addition to enhancing the gameplay in the Web3 version, they also released several Web2-exclusive versions of PuffGo that do not involve tokens/NFTs to increase brand awareness.

Moonveil Entertainment

Moonveil Entertainment is a Web3 game studio. The team comes from backgrounds in the game industry, including “League of Legends,” “Teamfight Tactics,” “Minecraft,” and more.

TTT

TTT is a Web3 game incubated by blockchain game publisher Xterio. The game includes racing and shooting PVP game types and will integrate Web3 economics. It is currently in development.

SLianGuaice Nation

SLianGuaice Nation is an AAA-level space opera Web3 MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). It was co-founded by Hollywood director Roland Emmerich, who directed “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012”, Jerome Wu, the head of operations for “World of Warcraft” in China, senior game producer Tony Tang, and media entrepreneur Marco Weber. The core project, SLianGuaice Nation Online, has been under development for over 3 years with a total investment of $50 million. Alpha testing began in August, and it is expected to officially launch in the second quarter of 2024. The economic model includes the governance token OIK, utility token CHR, and NFTs.

Mythic Protocol

Mythic Protocol is a Web3 collaborative entertainment protocol that aims to create an entertainment product ecosystem combining blockchain technology, games, and creative media. It plans to release in the form of games and comics and gradually develop into a cinematic universe. The first project is a rogue-lite ARPG that uses blockchain technology.

Gameta

Gameta is an NFT gaming ecosystem that aims to bring Web2 users into the metaverse through features like automatic on-chain address creation, low gas fees, and optional key management. Users can register their Gameta wallets to receive free NFTs, and they can earn GDO rewards while playing games. These GDO rewards can be exchanged for USDC.

MetaOne

MetaOne is a “guild-as-a-service (SaaS)” platform dedicated to bringing large-scale games and guilds into blockchain gaming. It integrates into game architectures, extracts guild-related data for analysis, provides guild management tools, offers asset management to help stakeholders generate income, and designs smart contracts for secure and transparent cross-chain investments.

Midnight Society

Midnight Society is a blockchain game studio that launched its first game, “Deadrop,” a vertical evacuation shooting game. The game combines level design from arena shooters, the scale of battle royales, and strategic gameplay from evacuation shooting games. A unique feature is the use of vertically designed maps. The current game is open to Tower Key and Founders LianGuaisses holders.

Infrastructure

Consensys

Consensys is a blockchain technology company that provides Ethereum-based software and solutions for enterprises, developers, and individuals. Its co-founder Joseph Lubin is also one of the co-founders of Ethereum. In addition to development and consulting services, its products include the MetaMask wallet, the Infura development suite, the Diligence smart contract auditing service, and the open-source blockchain Quorum.

LianGuairticle Network

LianGuairticle Network is a Web3 infrastructure that aims to introduce convenience, efficient interaction, data autonomy, and modular adaptability for users while protecting their privacy and improving interaction efficiency. Its V2 version will build an intent-centric and modular Web3 access layer that includes features like zkWaaS (Zero-Knowledge Proof Wallet-as-a-Service) and Intent Fusion Protocol. It provides a range of modular components such as Confidential Login, Confidential Transaction, DApps Intent Framework, and Intent Solver Network.

OpenFort

OpenFort is a cryptographic infrastructure service provider specializing in developing “wallet-as-a-service” software products for game developers and publishers, making the interaction with on-chain assets in games as simple and programmable as data interchange. Recently, OpenFort collaborated with Merit Circle and Avalanche to launch the game subnetwork Beam and provide an account abstraction solution.

Polyhedra

Polyhedra provides a trustless and efficient interoperability solution for asset transfers, messaging, and data sharing between various Web2 and Web3 systems using zero-knowledge proofs. Its product lineup includes cross-chain infrastructure zkBridge, ZK client zkLightClient, credential system ZK-DID, and programmable NFT protocol ZK-NFT.

UXUY

UXUY is a decentralized multi-chain trading platform based on MPC wallets. It lowers the entry barrier by offering users a solution with no mnemonic phrase and no gas fees, providing a trading experience similar to traditional CEX platforms. Currently, it supports 8 public chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, and Optimism.

LianGuaiss3

LianGuaiss3 is a Web3 advertising company that aims to provide a value exchange system for advertisers, publishers, and users. It offers an in-game rewarded advertising solution (out-of-app), with its main product being the LianGuaiss3 Honorwall for ad placements. Users receive rewards when they click on ads served through Honorwall. Apart from Arcane Investments, LianGuaiss3 has also secured investments from LianGuaintera, Sequoia, Coinbase, Jump, SLianGuairtan, and others.

Nest

Nest aims to address the control of digital identities, assets, and transactions in the real world by providing blockchain functionality and infrastructure that supports most distributed services and products.

Fabric Cryptography

Fabric Cryptography is an encryption hardware manufacturer that specializes in the design, development, and manufacturing of cryptographic chips. Fabric Cryptography has collaborated with ZK technology developer Nil Foundation this year to launch a decentralized marketplace for encryption and outsourced proof generation, aiming to achieve faster, more scalable, more privacy-preserving, and zero-knowledge proof computations.

DeFi

APY.Vision

APY.Vision is a data platform built for DeFi protocols and investors. It tracks users’ liquidity pool yields and impermanent losses, monitors liquidity staking, and analyzes historical profit and loss situations.

AlgoRai Finance

AlgoRai Finance is a decentralized financial platform providing structured products and derivatives on the Algorand and Ethereum blockchains. It currently offers structured products for Algo, BTC, and ETH, generating profits through strategies such as automatic hedging with call and put options.

First Digital

First Digital is a technology-driven financial institution that launched the stablecoin FDUSD, backed by reserves, in June 2023. FDUSD is now available on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

BBOX

BBOX is a decentralized perpetual exchange that has been selected for the sixth season of Binance Labs’ incubation program. It aims to optimize the trading experience by leveraging dynamic AMM, multi-asset signaling, and OEV capture technologies, providing more profit opportunities for liquidity providers.

BasedApp

BasedApp is a Web3 bank that allows users to consume, send, and invest in cryptocurrencies anytime, anywhere. Its features include crypto Visa cards, support for account abstraction, and login via email or Google accounts. The service is initially available on the Polygon network.

Community

Discord

Discord is a communication platform that combines text, voice, and video chat. It is primarily used by gamers but is also utilized by the crypto community for real-time interactions.

Vega Idol

Vega Idol is a Web3 entertainment platform that focuses on Asian idol competitions. The selection process incorporates decentralized reality show competition mechanisms. Through token economics and product design, fans participate in various stages of idol selection, formation, and promotion. They grow and share profits with the next generation of idols.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!