A new venture capital firm called Lingfeng Innovation Fund (LIF), run by Nicole Zhang, a former executive at Binance Labs, has secured $20 million to invest in cryptocurrency firms.
The LIF with a focus on web3 is a sister fund to Beijing-based Lingfeng Capital, a fintech investment company that manages more than $400 million in assets.
According to Zhang, a founding partner at LIF, the $20 million in fundraising is a "first closure" for the fund. The ultimate goal is $30 million. According to Zhang, "providing web2 elites with web3 competence" will be a major LIF priority.
Zhang formerly served as an executive director at Binance Labs, the company's venture division. After working there for two years, she quit the company in May.
Ten investments have already been made by LIF, half of which were done in tandem with Zhang's old coworkers at Binance Labs. ApolloX, ZetaChain, and Ultiverse are among its bets.
With a wide global focus, the fund is concentrated on early-stage projects from the pre-seed to Series A stages.
Ning Ma, Ming Shu, and Zhang, who oversees fundraising and deal due diligence, are the founding partners of Lingfeng Capital as well as LIF. LIF has a Singapore Capital Markets Services Licence thanks to its relationship with Lingfeng Capital.
Although some employees and rights between the two funds are shared, LIF has its own roster of limited partners (LPs), according to Zhang, which includes renowned businesspeople and top publicly traded tech businesses. She cited Singapore-based family office Kamet Capital Partners and the crypto security company CertiK as two examples.
