Emerge Launches a $300M Fund to Invest in AI & Web3 Companies Globally

Dubai-based Emerge is launching a $300 million AI & Web3 venture fund, which is backed by institutional investors, family offices, and web3-native founders.

Emerge is one of the leading players in the space that started in 2012 and has invested in more than 200 companies since then. 

Emerge incubates and invests in AI & Web3 technology companies globally. We provide deep operational support and capital to entrepreneurs and help them build the wider decentralized web ecosystem." the firm said in a release. 

The new fund will invest in web3 projects and companies that focus on layer-1 blockchains, web3 infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs and gaming, payments, asset management, exchanges, marketplaces, and decentralized applications. 

Even though the market might not be as bullish as it was last year, Emerge isn’t worried.

“We are long-term investors and believe that web3 offers the highest enterprise value creation in the entire tech industry today,” Emerge commented. “This view is independent of current market conditions. We try not to time markets, and instead invest over long periods.”

The firm thinks the recent drawdown in web3 asset prices generally provides more favorable entry prices for venture capital funds like Emerge, but the transition from Web 2.0 to Web3 is in its early stages. “We think web3 native investing teams like ours have a distinct advantage in the market today in understanding the direction and long-term opportunity set in web3.”

Even in this bearish market, there’s more evidence of consumer and institutional adoption than in previous cycles, Emerge commented.

“NFTs, for instance, generated more than $30 billion of sales in the first two years of their existence, making them, we believe, the most successful new consumer product introduced since the smartphone,” Emerge said. “These products could only have been built atop blockchains and show strong consumer interest in web3-based products.”

Through the new fund, Emerge will aim to continue investing and building web3 companies that align with the “giant landscape web3 entails,” Emerge said.

“This focus creates a ‘clean slate’ investing discipline undistracted by legacy business models and unbiased by legacy approaches to building technology, many of which we feel are outdated strategies not appropriate for creating the networks of the future.”