Web3 venture capital firm DWF Labs has been rewarded for another correct directional bet, this time on the future of AI. Last year, the fund led a $40M round into AI agent network Fetch.ai and this week was remunerated in the form of almost $12M in FET tokens. While the investor is believed to be in no hurry to sell the allocation, the size of the transaction captured the attention of onchain analysts.
DWF Receives FET Bonanza
Any time anyone receives millions of dollars of tokens in a single transaction, be they a known or unknown entity, it’s bound to attract attention. This despite the fact that dozens of such transactions are made every day across the muli-chain landscape. Wallet trackers such as Cielo, Looksonchain, and EtherDrops have made it their business to notice what whales and other HNWIs are up to and routinely alert their users to transactions of this nature.
Within minutes of a wallet receiving 10M FET tokens, therefore, crypto Twitter was feverishly discussing the news. The value of the transaction is not particularly surprising given that the recipient was DWF Labs, who are known for working with large numbers. Not only do they routinely fund web3 startups, having written checks for 700 such companies to date, but DWF is a major trading firm and market maker – and there’s a high chance those 10M FET end up getting utilized for one of these purposes.
Behind the unassuming name, DWF Labs is a whirlwind of activity that serves more crypto verticals and regions than perhaps any other blockchain investor. Its 2023 investment in Fetch.ai is just one of the many shrewd investments it’s made that have vindicated its broad crypto thesis.
What Doesn’t DWF Labs Do?
It would probably be quicker to list the services DWF Labs doesn’t supply, such is the range of web3 verticals in which its name routinely appears. Founded in 2018, the firm made its name – and its money – from high frequency trading, something which it is still heavily involved with across most of the leading crypto exchanges. It’s also active onchain, participating in DeFi across protocols such as Curve and providing market making services for DEX pools.
While the DWF Labs name is familiar to most crypto natives, the names of its founders is less widely known. Founding Partner Heng Yu Lee keeps a low profile on social media, but Partner Andrei Grachev is much more active, as is Partner Eugene Ng, who’s regularly evangelizing for web3 adoption across Asia, where DWF Labs has a particular presence.
While its VC deals and onchain paydays tend to attract the most headlines, DWF Labs does a lot of work behind the scenes that, while less exciting, is every bit as important in moving the industry forwards. It’s a regular sponsor of hackathons, and offers grant programs to web3 startups in strategic regions including the Middle East and South East Asia. These are checks that DWF has no intention of seeing a return on: rather, it’s a broader investment in the tech itself and the builders of tomorrow.
For every Fetch.ai investment that pays off handsomely, there are many more that take years to mature or that are written off for various reasons. But with over 20% of the crypto projects in the top 100 by market cap having been invested in by DWF Labs in some capacity, and around 35% of the top 1,000, you’d better get used to hearing its name mentioned alongside whale-sized transactions. Moving millions is its business and it’s gotten very good at it.
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