The Bitcoin startup scene is about to receive up to $20 million from a venture fund. The money is coming from a Chinese family who owns a multi-billion-dollar company. The investors believe that the “use of bitcoin will continue to grow and proliferate in China”.  

Huiyin Group, a Chinese-based investment firm, announced the creation of a Blockchain-centered subsidiary, Huiyin Blockchain Venture. The new company will partner up with “innovative startups and entrepreneurs to help them grow and define the future of the Blockchain economy”.

As stated on their website, the new fund will aim to invest in a wide variety of areas inside the bitcoin space:

We provide strategic investment to bring pioneering blockchain technology ideas to life and to scale in a number of areas, including infrastructure, exchange, payment, remittance, or use cases.

The firm made its first investments already, including Purse.io (a marketplace), Yours network (a social media-centered startup), and Unocoin (India’s top cryptocurrency exchange). Andrew Lee, CEO of Purse, will serve as Advisor at the venture fund.

Venture Capitalists seek to invest in high-risk companies or startups with the hopes of making big returns in case one of them becomes successful.

In this process, the funding company gains equity ownership in a small new, early-stage, firm. With the rise of Bitcoin, new ventures and startups were launched. Notably, companies like Circle, Coinbase, Kraken, and others, have managed to secure hundreds of millions  in investments.

Stats collected by several pieces of research, such as the annual report made by Coindesk, show that initially most of the funding went to Bitcoin-based startups. But that trend has slowed down, and money is being poured into Blockchain-based ventures.

In other words, companies are diversifying their operations and are seeking new markets.  This is especially true with exchanges and trading platforms; their revenue comes from market volume, so it’s only natural that they would want to offer support for more cryptocurrencies.   However, the new fund managed by Huiyin Group will be solely focused on Bitcoin-based companies.

We are seeking to invest in bitcoin-related companies to help enrich the industry, as we see a large opportunity for a return on our investment.

James Wo, the son of Huiyin Group founder and CEO of the Blockchain subsidiary, believes in the future of Bitcoin.  Specifically, he stated that the currency will continue to thrive in the Chinese market:

As the bitcoin industry continually matures, the use of bitcoin will continue to grow and proliferate in China as well as the rest of the world. HBV intends to be at the forefront of this technology, as it continues to gain traction globally.