The CoinSwitch Web3 Discovery Fund has evaluated 150 Indian web3 startups across different use cases like infrastructure-related products and blockchain analytics within three months of opening up for applications. It is expected to announce its first cohort of 10 startups soon and plans to invest in more than 100 startups by the end of 2024.
In the early stage of the fund, CoinSwitch will be writing cheques of $100,000-$200,000 and working as a medium to introduce startups and funds jointly in larger rounds with its 20 Venture Capital partners. The partners participating in the funding round will be Ribbit Captial, Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, Woodstock Fund, Sequoia Captial, Elevation Capital, and incubation partner Builders Tribe.
Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch mentioned that CoinSwitch has already evaluated 150 startups. CoinSwitch is unable to keep pace with the kind of talent and innovation they are seeing coming in. He also stated that it is hard for retail users and businesses to search the Web3 ecosystem, so people have started building the Web3 equivalent of Web2 companies such as Google, for crypto, and more.
Besides CoinSwitch, its companions like CoinDesk have rushed into venture capital with CoinDCX Ventures targeting early-stage Web3 startups. This might sound like a blessing for the Web3 ecosystem, but it also highlights the challenges in the pure-play crypto segment.
Parth Chaturvedi, the head of CoinSwitch’s Web3 Discovery fund, stated that the fund’s applications included many use cases around blockchain analytics, self-custodial solutions for Web3 wallets, Web3 infrastructure-related products, and more.
