thecoinrise.com
The NEAR Foundation, a non-profit organization behind the governance and development of the NEAR Protocol in collaboration with Caerus Ventures has introduced a $100 million venture capital fund. The Foundation also announced its venture lab.
The funds with an initial closure of $50 million and a $100 million for seed to Series A investment is led by NEAR.
Its first investment will be in the venture lab which focuses on financing leading Web3.0 engineers, developers, and venture builders who want to produce market-defining products based on recognizable IP and talent.
Asides from the financial support, the venture lab will also provide cross-functional aid to portfolio firms that center on talent and IP products.
Through the partnership, the duo will revolutionalize the existing multi-layered entertainment ecosystem, scale the market size and promote equity.
Caerus Ventures has a focus on financing Web3.0 startups focused on entertainment and culture spurring innovative projects in sports, music, film, TV, fashion, and art.
Founded in 2017 by Alexander Skidanov, a former Microsoft employee, and Illia Polosukhin, the senior developer, NEAR has the backing of VC firms including DragonFly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, a16z, Pantera Capital, and Blockchain.Com amongst others.
Recently, the protocol via the release of JavaScript Software Kits (JS SDKs) onboarded about 20 million JavaScript developers. The developers can now create applications on the NEAR protocol and construct blockchain smart contracts. Even though NEAR is a rival to Ethereum it is possible to develop Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contracts from the SDKs
Growing VC Funding for the Creator Economy
As the Web3.0 sub-sector continues to advance, the sector has enjoyed funding dedicated to creators to develop the ecosystem despite the prolonged crypto winter.
Last year October NEAR protocol launched an $800 million grant funds structure for various aspects of the DeFi sector and its ecosystem.
CreatorDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on Web3 projects recently secured $20 million to finance, mentor, and provide the needed technology for talented creators. Also, Web3.0-focused venture capital firm Symbolic Capital raised $50 million dedicated to emerging projects in the space.