Animoca Brands, one of the most prominent investors in Web3, with more than 380 investments made, has reduced its expectations for its new Web3 and Metaverse fund. In November last year, Animoca Brands, co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu, announced that the company was willing to launch a $2 billion fund for investments in key Metaverse projects.

However, things have changed due to the uncertain macroeconomic conditions and the recent bailout of FTX. Animoca lowered their expectations for the new fund, and now they expect to raise a total investment of $1 billion.

In a recent Twitter Space with Bloomberg on Thursday, January 5, Yat Siu mentioned that Animoca is already in talks with potential investors, with the raising taking place in the first quarter of this year. Yat Siu also noted that the money raised will support Metaverse and blockchain startups.

They are not guaranteed to raise $1 billion. As mentioned by Yat Siu, their initial goal is to raise a billion, but the final value will depend on the market circumstances and the interest of VCs.

Without disclosing with which company, Yat Siu stated that one of Animoca’s portfolio businesses had recently finished a funding round, with a “top-name, top-tiered VCs” providing the funding. He concluded, “My point is that there is capital in the space.”

Investments made by Venture Capitalists keep slowing the pace.

The slowdown in Animoca Brands’ expectations mirrors a tendency seen in other VCs. Due to the bailout of FTX and the uncertain macroeconomic conditions, the investment pace on venture rounds kept falling in the last months of 2022. As reported by Messari, the total amount raised in December was $660 million, a 21.5% drop from the $840 million in November.

December 2022 also recorded the lowest number of investments made, with only 50 public investments made on crypto-related projects by Venture Capitalists (VCs).

In the last two months of 2021, Messari Fundraising Data showed $8 billion in capital deployed across 287 rounds, while the investments made in the same period of 2022 dropped to $1.4 billion across 112 rounds.

As cryptocurrency investors adapt to the macroeconomic difficulties and uncertainties about the overall health of the crypto firms, VC’s strategy and values are experiencing some changes and corrections. The overall capital shifted towards agreements at the earliest stage in the last few months of the last year, and the tendency should continue.

(By Jordano M. Z.)