Web3, Crypto-Focused Investor Amesten Capital Bags $9 Mn To Focus On DeFi Finance, Gaming Space

Web3 and crypto-focused investor Amesten Capital has secured $9 Mn from family houses in the Middle East and Europe to set up a new fund to be focussed on gaming space, decentralised (DeFi) finance, and infrastructure. 

Mumbai-based Amesten Capital was founded in 2018 by Sachin Jain. It is a seed investment fund that focuses on early-stage startups. He has also cofounded Amesten Asset, a crypto portfolio management service for high net-worth individuals and institutions.

The new fund managing partner (Jain) has in the past invested in more than 18 startups, including Delta Exchange (crypto derivatives exchange), Unmarshal (decentralised network of blockchain data indexers), Easyfi (decentralised finance lending protocol), Nord Finance (DeFi platform), and Kalamint (NFT marketplace).

Sachin Jain’s initial investments yielded healthy exits, going up to an internal rate of return of 480%. 

Sharing his opinion about Web3, he said it is a trending idea presently, so there can be a lot of hype. However, a few Web3 products are doing good and can make a difference in the coming years. 

Most of the crypto ecosystem, apart from a few Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplaces and crypto exchanges, are in its infancy state in the country in deal making, so it is difficult to make predictions, he said. 

As far as online gaming platforms are concerned, he said, a lot of pre-product market fit startups in the ecosystem only have ideas at this point as they are too at the early stages of attracting the first set of users. 

Meanwhile, several investors are making early bets in the Web3-focussed startups in India, indicating this space has a lot of scope and potential.

The recent notable deals include Mumbai-based Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) raising $10.1 Mn a few days back in Series A funding at a $131 Mn valuation. Led by Jump Crypto, the round also saw participation from 25 other investors including Tiger Global, Polygon Studios, Sino Global Capital and Zee Prime Capital.

Founded in April 2020 by Richa Joshi and Harsh Rajat, EPNS is building an open communication layer for the Web3 ecosystem.

In January 2022, cryptocurrency staking management startup Stader Labs raised $12.5 Mn in a private sale led by Three Arrows Capital.

The round also saw participation from Blockchain.com, Accomplice, DACM, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber, 4RC, Figment. Angel investors Prabhakar Reddy (FalconX) and Matt Cantieri (Anchor Protocol).

Founded in April 2021 by Amitej Gajjala, Dheeraj Borra And Sidhartha Doddipalli, Stader is a non-custodial smart contract-based staking platform that claims to help retail investors and institutions discover and access staking solutions.

Meanwhile, international crypto venture funds are also increasingly investing in the country. 

Global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase’s investment arm, Coinbase Ventures partnered with an India-based incubator, Builders Tribe in March 2022 to invest in the country’s Web3 startups through video pitch entries. Coinbase Ventures will invest up to $1 Mn. 

FTX Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX which has a corpus of $2 Bn, partnered with SuperteamDao and launched FTX Superteam in January 2022.

Moreover, FTX Gaming, a subsidiary of FTX, also announced its partnership with the Indian arm of Yield Guild Games (YGG), IndiGG in March 2022. The two companies will partner to drive Web3 proliferation and adoption within the Indian gaming industry.