Standard Chartered’s investment arm partners with SBI Holdings to invest $100 million in crypto startups

SC Ventures, the investment arm of Standard Chartered, and Japanese financial group SBI Holdings have partnered to establish a $100 million cryptocurrency fund in the United Arab Emirates. The two companies said on Thursday that the fund, which will be set up as a joint venture, plans to invest in crypto startups in areas such as decentralized finance, tokenization, infrastructure, payments and virtual worlds, with the goal of doing so globally. Investment, covering companies from seed round to Series C financing. (The Block) According to previous news, Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings will start operating funds to invest in startups such as Web3, AI, and Yuanverse within this year. The amount of each investment is expected to be between several hundred million and more than one billion yen, with a total of 150 to 200 investing companies. The maximum size of the fund is expected to reach 100 billion yen (approximately US$663 million). Large domestic banks and regional banks will also provide financial support to Japanese startups. In addition, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mizuho Bank, Nippon Life Insurance and Daiwa Securities Group have decided to inject more than 50 billion yen into the fund.