DWF Labs Managing Partner Andrei Grachev discussed the firm’s investment strategy and continuing risks for the industry.
Investment in crypto companies, which poured in at a record pace during the 2021 bull market, slowed to a near stop as the bear market began and headline-grabbing scandals rocked the industry.
However, along with a few feisty venture capital firms, market maker DWF Labs, which has operated in the crypto space since 2016, has stepped in with a steady wave of investments. “We believe that this bearish market – this turbulent market – is the best time to join the investment space,” DWF Labs managing partner Andrei Grachev told CoinDesk in an interview. “We accumulated enough funds from our profits to invest in projects now.”
DWF Labs has offices in Singapore, Switzerland, the British Virgin Islands, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Hong Kong. The firm is an affiliate of Digital Wave Finance (DWF), a global crypto trading player that trades in spot and derivatives markets on over 40 top exchanges.
As an investor, DWF Labs prefers to participate through token purchases and favors infrastructure projects, including layer one and layer two developments. The firm is also interested in artificial intelligence (AI)-based projects and gamified finance (GameFi). DWF has recently backed a $40 million round for “alternative internet” provider Tomi, a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a new $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai, to name a few.
Infrastructure projects and consumer-facing systems that make crypto more accessible for mass adoption are key areas during the bear market, said Grachev.