Despite the ongoing crypto winter, which has affected many companies in the large Web3 space, investments continue to pour into the space.

On January 17, Hong Kong-based global asset manager HashKey Capital announced the closing of a $500 million investment round for its FinTech Investment Fund III.

According to the company, Fund III will be used to invest in infrastructure, tools, and applications that will help drive mass adoption of blockchain and cryptographic technologies.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Xiao Xiao, chief investment officer at HashKey Capital, said that synergies in the Web3 space are a key factor in keeping investors coming back for more.

“Web3 is growing too fast to be ignored. Many traditional institutions and internet giants are interested in cryptocurrencies. Some are learning to participate in this paradigm shift.”

Xiao said that financial organizations can view cryptocurrencies as another asset class to diversify their portfolio. In addition, she highlighted that investing in a fund creates an easy introduction to interacting with the Web3 space.

According to the chief investment officer, the crypto winter has also seen a “significant change” in the type of investor entering the space.

“As more and more institutional investors join, investment decisions are driven by long-term value and profitability, rather than short-term goals.”

Founded in 2018, HashKey Capital has managed over $1 billion in client assets and invested in some of the biggest players in the industry. This includes projects like Animoca Brands, Polygon, Moonbeam, and Blockdaemon, among others.

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Xiao said that when it comes to short-term investments, those who create projects with real-life use cases are on everyone’s radar.

In recent years, the infrastructure layer has undergone major innovations. This layer includes interoperability, privacy, and data availability, among others. However, there have not been many actual adopted cases.

“The middle layer, which embeds the infrastructure in real use cases, can therefore be considered very important. And this kind of middle layer has to be productive and easy to use.”