InkSight 3：The keys to Web3 partnerships & the future of DAOs

7 min readMay 4, 2022

An interview with INK’s early investor, Maggie Wu, CEO & co-founder of Krypital Group

Ink Finance is committed to providing seamless DAO SaaS services for enterprise users, including DAO’s ETF management, Web3 bonds, financial NFTs, etc. This series of tools can help enterprises migrate to the Web3 network more efficiently.

1. Krypital Group is the early investor for many successful crypto projects. How do you analyze the blockchain industry generally? What are the most essential qualities that a project must have when you invest?

Within the blockchain industry, our take on different tracks, and the direction of our investment varies as the industry grows. For example, five or six years ago, we invested more in the Layer 1 section. Two or three years ago, we invested more in DeFi, Layer 2, etc. Last year, our main focus of investment has been more towards GameFi and NFT, etc. In the future, we will look more into Metaverse and Web3 related projects. The basic logic of our investment thesis is to build an innovative fintech ecosystem, always starting from the infrastructure and building up more diverse protocols and applications on top of that.

When it comes to investing in a certain specific project, it will involve all aspects of things. For the most essential qualities, I believe it is the team, such as the team’s vision, backgrounds, experiences, capabilities, resources, so on and so forth. In addition, the track, product, potential value, etc. are also very important factors to take into account.

2. What are the current challenges in the Web3 era in your opinion?

In our opinion, Web3 is not a particular business model or technological innovation but a paradigmatic revolution in the distribution of Internet economic value. The progressively evolving Web 3 track includes:

1) User identity: traditional centralized identities are prone to security and privacy risks.

2) Organizational form: The core view of Web3 is built by users and owned by users, so it will be controlled by members of the organization (DAO), and not influenced by a central entity.

3) Economic system: digital assets are the core elements of Web3, and data assets will be tokenized as FT and NFT to support the whole economic system.

4) Representation: All activities and interactions in Web3 need to be implemented depending on specific applications, but various applications are connected and combined in a Lego-like fashion.

5) Decentralized storage: a decentralized storage solution provides bottom level support for Web3 applications.

6) With the advancement of technology and the innovation of developers, the Web3 track will be more diverse. Ultimately, Web3 is committed to creating a user-led, decentralized network ecology based on blockchains, which is significantly different from the centralized ecology and the business model of Web1 and Web2.

As a leader in the space, Kryptital Group has been focusing on the Web3 track for a long time. After the conversation with many Web3 project teams, Krypital Group has concluded some difficulties faced in the current Web3 project expansion.

1) Technology. Blockchain technology has existed for only around ten years, the infrastructure is not mature enough, and there are still many shortcomings in large-scale applications. The solutions of decentralization, security, and scalability are still not perfect, which also brings many constraints to the construction of specific projects. It is believed that the development of L2 and multichain ecology will gradually create a better development environment for developers.

2) Users. Nowadays, the vast majority of the original Internet residents are Web2 users, and their habits and thinking will need more time to adapt and evolve. How to attract users to use and participate in the Web3 project on a large scale is a major challenge for current Web3 projects.

3) Business model. Although people’s cognition of Web3 has a preliminary outline, exploring the business model is still in the initial stage. The business model is not the core of the Web3 project, but it is crucial to developing Web3 projects. For Krypital Group, we not only provide support on the financing side but also frequently communicate with the projects and give relevant consulting during the project development process.

As Web3 is still in its early stages, these challenges may still be just the “tip of the iceberg,” but we remain very optimistic about Web3. We have begun to see that the emphasis on DIDs, the rapid development of DAOs, and NFTs are having an increasing impact on the traditional world. Especially in the joint growth of Ink Finance, we have seen the enthusiasm and efforts of the INK team and the progress of the project. We also believe that INK will play a more critical role in Web3. With the advancement of technology, more talents will join in the construction of Web3. As long as we maintain enough patience, we will jointly witness the bright future of the Web3 era.

3. Ink Finance and Polytrade are two of your portfolio companies. The two ecosystems strive to make a difference in finance on Web3. What do you think about the collaborations between these two companies?

We are delighted to see the deep cooperation between two leading Web3 projects. Ink Finance is committed to providing seamless DAO SaaS services for enterprise users, including DAO’s ETF management, Web3 bonds, financial NFTs, etc. This series of tools can help traditional enterprises migrate to the Web3 network more efficiently. Polytrade aims to build a blockchain-based decentralized SaaS platform to help companies better fund receivables. Both parties have the same attributes, and cooperation can empower each other. For Polytrade, it can enrich platform functions and deepen business scenarios; for INK, Polytrade can help it improve platform functions further and prepare for opening more application scenarios in the future. We believe that the cooperation between the two parties can bring more significant innovation to supply chain finance and lead to the development of Web3 financial innovation. In addition, from Krypital Group’s point of view, we think this is an excellent practice of the openness and composability of Web3. The successful cooperation between the two parties also encourages us to deepen our understanding of Web3 and practice our investment philosophy.

4. What are your suggestions for projects when they develop partnerships?

This is a very interesting question. The essence of Web3 is openness. Projects, VCs, communities, and users are very willing to establish cooperative relations, which is also the charm of Web3. But in our opinion, becoming a partner is only the first step. How to deepen the partnership to better assist the project’s development is way more important.

In fact, for every project that Krypital Group invests in, we will always ask the project founder, “What kind of partners are you looking for?” during our post-investment process. We do this for two reasons. First, it provides the project team with better and more matched cooperation resources. In each stage of the project, the resources required are different. In the past investment experience of Krypital Group, we have accumulated enough resources in each stage of the project development process to match the project. On the other hand, it is also a way for us to get a more advanced understanding of the project development progress and can also provide suggestions for the project team in order to find more valuable partners.

Therefore, in our opinion, when developing partners, the project team should not only focus on establishing cooperative relations but also should clarify the stage of its project development, conduct an in-depth exploration of the cooperation, and be able to play their respective roles in collaboration. With advantages and resources, both parties can empower each other to help the implementation and application of products.

Take Ink Finance and Polytrade as an example, INK acts as a bridge between DAO asset producers and DeFi investors, continuing to highlight the transparency and security of on-chain asset management. With the help of Polytrade’s advantages in shaping trade finance, it vigorously improved asset sourcing and development. When faced with user lending problems, it will create a comprehensive and reliable credit system for Defi for all roles involved, such as credit, capital flow incentives, and insurance support. Both sides can benefit from each other.

5. As one of the early investors of INK, what do you believe in INK? What do you see in this DAO Infrastructure?

Although DAO is one of the cores of Web3, we must admit that the development of DAO is very early, and the infrastructure is still very scarce. Until today, the establishment and basic application of DAO on the chain is still a huge task for most DAOs. However, it is not easy to do infrastructure. It requires a professional background, a deep understanding of the industry, and the team can persevere. After our initial contact with INK and learning about what it does, we looked forward to working with INK. After further communication with the founding team, we were deeply impressed by them. They have an excellent traditional financial background, a deep understanding of blockchain and Web3, and a very high level of professionalism, so we made the investment decision in a short time. In the following project development, we engaged in frequent communication with the team and witnessed the remarkable progress of the platform. We are honored to be one of the early investors in INK, and we are very grateful to the INK team for their continuous achievements and persistence. We believe that INK can become the leading financial infrastructure for DAOs, we also expect it to be one of the key players in the Web3 world.

As one of the witnesses to the development of the whole crypto industry, we are very excited about the upcoming Web3. We also realize that many infrastructures of Web3 and DAO are still in a very early stage. We are happy to provide help at each stage of INK’s development, support its vision, and implement our cognition and investment philosophy. At the same time, we are also making more and more in-depth layouts in this track to help consolidate the infrastructure of Web3 and welcome the coming Web3 era.

InkSight column covers everything you should know about the DAO revolution. Featured guests are pioneers from Web3 industry, institutional investors, researchers, and founders, including our backers, partners, and ecosystem users.

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