SCB 10X Chief Venture and Investment Officer Mukaya (Tai) Panich
SCB 10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank, has announced the launch of a new fund worth US$50 million.
The fund will invest in both early- and growth-stage startups globally, particularly promising startups in blockchain infrastructure for decentralised finance (DeFi) and digital assets, to ready the bank for the digital financial systems of the future.
As per an official statement, the move is the latest in its attempt to spur its ‘Moonshot Mission’ even further. Moonshot Mission represents ideas and creations that have never been done before and the recognition of market needs in the future which can take the bank to reach the goals before other counterparts.
Also Read: Thai bank SCB doubles the size of its fintech-focussed corporate VC fund to US$100M
The bank, through SCB 10X, has set its eyes on strong potential companies and startups worldwide to create new capabilities embracing novel technology through investment to generate exponential growth.
SCB 10X Chief Venture and Investment Officer Mukaya (Tai) Panich, said: “With our new US$50-million blockchain-, DeFi-, and digital assets- dedicated VC fund, we will invest across the capital stack in innovative and promising startups in blockchain infrastructure, blockchain innovative applications, and decentralised finance globally, to better prepare the bank for future disruption.”
In her view, blockchain can reduce transaction costs, facilitate distributed trust, enhance security, and potentially become the new foundation for centralised and decentralised business models and platforms. In the financial industry, blockchain-enabled financial services have the potential to broaden financial inclusion, facilitate open access, and encourage innovation.
“We see strong parallels between traditional finance and blockchain-enabled financial services businesses. Blockchain technology can make financial services more innovative, interoperable, traceable, borderless, and transparent,” Panich added.
Also Read: A lowdown on why DeFi is good for the growth of cryptocurrency
In October last year, SCB 10X entered into a partnership with Alpha Finance Lab (AFL), an ecosystem of cross-chain Decentralised Finance (DeFi) products, with an aim to bridge the gap between traditional banking and emerging financial technology with a new suite of DeFi products under the umbrella of Alpha.
As per this partnership, the two firms will closely work with each other to build and launch innovative and impactful Alpha products that become key building blocks to grow the DeFi market by leveraging years of knowledge and experience in traditional finance.
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Image Credit: SCB 10X
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