Singapore-based Mooncake Capital raises $10m for new crypto fund

Singapore-based Mooncake Capital, a venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain, said it has raised US$10 million for investments in Asian crypto projects through its new fund called Connect Fund.

Photo credit: David McBee

With a targeted size of US$100 million, the fund aims to fuel Mooncake Capital’s blockchain investments in China, Singapore, and Hong Kong by bringing in financing from outside the main Asian crypto hubs, such as Latin America, Europe, and a few countries in Southeast Asia, the company said in a statement.

Mooncake Capital’s early investments include Ethereum, Ripple, Binance, OmiseGO, and Houbi, among others.

Due to the complexity of the projects involved in Connect Fund, the company said it is only taking capital in the form of cryptocurrency. However, it also said it could facilitate over-the-counter (OTC) trades.

Patrick Lee, partner at Mooncake Capital, anticipates the new fund to be fully subscribed soon due to the “hot” Chinese crypto market and “hungry” Indonesian investors.

“The Connect Fund is open to anyone, but we are getting extensive interest from Indonesia. We consistently see large OTC volumes in Indonesia – about US$1 million to US$2 million a day,” he said.

For these investors, Chinese crypto projects are the most interesting investment. Lee said that there is a general misconception that crypto is dead in China since cryptocurrencies were banned in the country. But according to him, there is an “unbelievable amount of money” currently being poured into Chinese projects.

“The fiat-to-crypto problem in China is solved via OTC, either through WeChat groups or exchange OTC sections like Huobi OTC,” Lee explained, adding that the exchanges have incorporated in Singapore or Seychelles, with the entire team sitting in an office in Shanghai or Beijing.

“It’s a bit of a different game in China – the market is unforgiving, scams are everywhere – but if you do it right, the returns are […] massive,” said Lee.