EMURGO Launches $100 mln Investment Vehicle To Boost Innovation In Cardano

EMURGO, the commercial arm of the Cardano Network, has announced it will allocate $100 million to a new investment vehicle for startups.

This new Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle will be accessible to startups and companies in the early stage of development that are building solutions on the Cardano Network and have a potential for social impact. For this purpose, the organization has created EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures, each with its own investment thesis. Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s creator and IOHK’s CEO, said about this initiative:

“EMURGO’s investments will help to shape the future of the Cardano ecosystem, a maturing network with a creative and diverse community, growing smart contract capabilities and partnerships across the globe that provide social and financial services utilizing Cardano’s provably-secure technology.”

EMURGO Africa will focus on supporting regional startups requiring seed funding and incubation support as well as they are located in Africa and seek to boost Cardano’s adoption as a new technological standard.

EMURGO Ventures, on the other hand, will focus on developed markets by allocating capital for seed investments on startups building projects related to DeFi, NFTs, Blockchain Education, and decentralized applications. Ken Kodama, EMURGO’s CEO, referred to the efforts to expand the Cardano ecosystem by saying:

“We are more focused than ever on accelerating the development of Cardano’s ecosystem with a rich mix of decentralized services catering to a global community that is increasing in overall blockchain awareness. EMURGO is dedicated to meeting this demand by providing the capital and strategic resources necessary for our portfolio companies to scale rapidly and bring new solutions to Cardano,”

With the recent deployment of the Alonzo upgrade, Cardano has seen an increasing interest from developers looking to take advantage of its new smart contract capabilities. This new initiative by EMURGO is certain to boost innovation in the network by providing entrepreneurs to launch their startups and collaborate on the network’s development.