Animoca Brands Corp., a Hong Kong-based venture capitalist and blockchain game maker, has lowered the target amount for its Web 3.0 and metaverse investment fund to US$1 billion from the initial target of up to US $2 billion, according to Bloomberg.

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Fast facts

• The company is raising about $1 billion for its new Web3 fund in the first quarter of this year, Animoca president Yat Siu said during a Twitter Spaces chat Organized by Bloomberg.

• The fund, Animoca Capital, aims to support the growth of startups in Web3, or the next generation of decentralization-focused internet technology, often via blockchain.

• The collapse of bankrupt Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com severely affected a dozen Animoca investments, including the long-awaited non-fungible token (NFT) game, Star Atlas, Siu said, according to Bloomberg.

• Despite the shock from FTX, Siu said that several Animoca subsidiaries have raised capital and interest in cryptocurrencies is still there.

• “The biggest damage with FTX was not so much financial…it was more reputational damage and institutional damage, and in particular, US institutional damage,” Siu said in a December interview with Forkast.

• FTX, once the world’s second-largest exchange, filed for bankruptcy in November after revelations of misappropriation and misdisclosure of company assets, affecting other major crypto players like Genesis and Gemini.

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