Thailand’s Second-Biggest Bank Announces $100 Million AI and Web3 Fund

KXVC will invest in Web3 infrastructure, zero-knowledge proofs, artificial intelligence, and validators.

Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and China are all proving to be serious contenders for Web 3 capital.

Thailand’s Kasikornbank has launched a $100 million Web3 and artificial intelligence (AI) fund to invest in Asia Pacific’s internet economy, expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2030. In addition to capital, aspiring companies can access corporate resources and insights from the bank’s partners.

Originating from the innovation arm of Kasikornbank, KXVC plans to focus on startups in Israel, the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. It has worked with other major funds, including Singapore-based HashKey Capital.

Privacy Will Be Key in New Markets
High on its investment agenda will be Web3 infrastructure companies, validator node operators, zero-knowledge and privacy-focused companies, and the “consumerization” of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). According to KXVC’s, head Krating Koonpol:

“KXVC will be a stepping stone for global founders to drive their business expansion in APAC with strong synergy with KBank and our partners.”

The Kasikornbank KXVC Fund will also explore funding various artificial intelligence companies. It had previously invested in digital asset advisory firm Cryptomind and Singapore-based multifunction app Grab.

Asia’s Drive to Be Global Nerve Center
Asia has blossomed into a thriving environment for crypto and Web3-related companies in the past several months. Helped by a US clampdown on crypto, the region’s economic hubs in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore have all attracted significant investments.

Are you interested in working in Web3? Read our checklist of recommended skills here.

Gemini Exchange confirmed in June it would expand its workforce in Singapore by 100. Korean exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone experienced increased trading volume in June as several US lawsuits hurt Binance, the world’s largest exchange.

While onerous, Hong Kong’s recently passed crypto legislation has provided a clear path for exchanges to secure licenses. The closest major Western regime, Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets bill, is several months away.

Several thousand miles northeast of Hong Kong, the island of Taiwan is also home to the world’s largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The region can potentially drive the global development of artificial intelligence, with Quanta Computer, the company that supplies servers to OpenAI, also based in the region.

Several provinces in China have already announced multi-year metaverse, blockchain, and Web 3 projects to transform aging regional infrastructure. The country’s equivalents of Google and Amazon, Baidu and Alibaba, recently released their own AI chatbots.

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