Giant Japanese bank with almost $450 Billion in Assets Under Management launches cryptocurrency venture capital division
A Japanese banking giant is venturing into the world of digital assets by launching its own crypto-focused venture capital arm.
According to a recent company press release , Nomura Holdings, which has nearly $450 billion in assets under management, announced today that Laser Digital will serve as its new crypto business.
Nomura Holdings says that the first product to be launched will be Laser Venture Capital, which will invest in blockchain companies with a focus on decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), and Web3 technologies.
Laser Digital, which was incorporated in Switzerland, also plans to offer secondary trading servers as well as investment products, according to the press release.
As stated by Kentaro Okuda, CEO of Nomura Holdings,
“Staying at the forefront of digital innovation is a key priority for Nomura. That is why, along with our efforts to diversify our business, we announced earlier this year that Nomura would establish a new subsidiary [focused] on digital assets.”
In May, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), another venture capital firm, launched a $4.5 billion digital asset fund as crypto markets slumped for winter.
Andreessen Horowitz, who manages more than $28 billion in assets, said he launched the fund because the world is entering the golden age of Web3 development.
“We believe that blockchain will power the next great computing cycle, which we call crypto or Web3… We believe that we are now entering the golden age of Web 3.0. Programmable blockchains are advanced enough, and a wide range of applications have reached tens of millions of users.”
About a week before that, a16z launched a metaverse-focused crypto fund, saying video games have evolved over the past decade into social media-like networks that use digital assets.
Sep 23, 2022
