Mask Network ecological investment fund Bonfire Union announced the completion of its first fund closing with 42 million USD

Author: Bonfire Union

Cyber World, July 6, 2022 --- Bonfire Union, the fund manager of the Mask Network ecosystem, announced today the successful completion of its first phase of fundraising (hereinafter referred to as "the fund"), totaling $42 million. As the first fund focused on the social ecosystem launched since July 2021, this successful fundraising demonstrates the foresight of Bonfire Union's investment strategy and its active role and leading position in the Web3 social ecosystem.

The fund will directly invest in the Web3 open network sector, including decentralized applications, middleware, platforms, and protocols. The fund will focus on screening and investing in outstanding Web3 enterprises/projects globally, while balancing financial performance, social impact, and decentralized ecosystem construction. Specifically, the fund will leverage Mask Network's leading position in the Web3 social ecosystem to invest in and integrate various components within the industry to jointly build a decentralized Web3 network. Bonfire Union aims to become the "Tencent strategic investment of Web3."

Cecilia Li, partner at Bonfire Union, stated: "Bonfire Union aims to be an important part of the thriving next-generation social ecosystem. Bonfire's investments have strategic synergy value, which will help enhance overall capital efficiency and the value of Mask Network and the invested projects. We seek to diversify risk by building a diversified portfolio across a series of components of the open network and promote the healthy and long-term development of the Web3 field."

In the year since the fund began operations, it has invested nearly $20 million in a considerable number of projects, primarily in three major areas: Web3 social, infrastructure, and gaming entertainment (including NFTs, GameFi, and the metaverse); Bonfire has strong and sufficient investment logic in all three areas. The fund has consistently been at the forefront of creating value for invested enterprises through product integration, media assistance, ecological support empowerment, and financing assistance. Based on a strong investment team and Web3-native investment philosophy, the fund has achieved a return of over 2 times the invested capital in a short period, even in a volatile market environment, and has already realized some exits.

Notable portfolio investments include:

• Web3 Social: RSS3 (decentralized information distribution), CyberConnect (decentralized social graph), and Tapz (Web3 forum).
• Infrastructure: Meson Network (decentralized CDN), ArDrive (decentralized storage), Scroll (zkEVM layer 2 solution), and Transak (fiat on-ramp).
• Gaming Entertainment: Thetan Arena (play-to-earn multiplayer online battle arena game), RCT (AI-generated games and blockchain content), Splinterlands (collectible trading multiplayer digital card game), and Highstreet (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

In the future, the fund will continue to actively seek and evaluate projects across various fields of Web3, complete ecological construction in the Web3 social domain, and strengthen its leading position. In terms of infrastructure, the fund is committed to finding optimal projects, and Mask Network will also become an early user and potential major partner of these projects. At the same time, the fund will pay more attention to zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized storage ecosystems. In the metaverse sector, Bonfire will continue to leverage its leading position in the Web3 social field to seek out the best games, content, brands, and technology teams.

The investment team at Bonfire Union consists of over 10 professionals distributed globally, with comprehensive experience in engineering, product, marketing growth, entrepreneurial management, law, and top VC. Additionally, support from Mask Network's deep technical resources can assist the investment team in conducting technical due diligence and identifying opportunities and risks.

"Some members of our investment team also hold important positions within Mask Network, and there is very close interaction and collaboration with the Mask business team, which provides us with a unique advantage in our investment process (including sourcing, evaluating, and assisting post-investment projects). This value-added effect is unmatched by any purely financial investor," added Taylor Zhang, head of the Mask Network ecosystem and partner at Bonfire Union.

Mask Network itself has received support from global investors, including Digital Currency Group, Alameda Research, Binance, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Protocol Labs, Arweave, FreeS, Y2Z, HashKey Group, Hash Global, SevenX, IOSG Ventures, SNZ, and Fundamental Labs. Other investors include former and current executives from top companies and projects in the Web3 field, including Coinbase, Gitcoin, and DeBank --- a significant portion of Mask Network's investors have already become LPs of Bonfire Union. Mask Network will also continue to invest a substantial share in the fund through its own capital and employee co-investment.

Independent investors in the Bonfire ecological fund also include a large number of former or current executives/partners from various fields, including top dollar venture capital funds (such as Qiming Venture Partners), leading financial enterprises (such as Silicon Valley Bank, Fosun Group), and leading internet companies, most of whom participate as individuals or family offices.

Suji Yan, founding partner of Bonfire Union, stated: "We are honored to collaborate with top investors from different regions who share our vision: to bridge the gap from the monopolistic Web2 to the open Web3 through investment and mutual growth with the next-generation social ecosystem, thereby returning power to the users."

About Bonfire Union

As the ecological fund of Mask Network, Bonfire is dedicated to investing in the components of the open network. Leveraging Mask Network's advantageous position as middleware for the next-generation social network, Bonfire aims to systematically integrate these components across the industry.

Bonfire Union's goal is to become the "Tencent strategic investment of Web3." With the rich strategic resources and technical support of the Mask Network ecosystem, Bonfire has a unique ability to discover and invest in future Web3 unicorn companies at an early stage and empower them to achieve success.

About Mask Network

Mask Network is a social network infrastructure project that connects Web2 and Web3 to establish an open internet ecosystem, returning data ownership to users. Mask Network achieves this vision through the following means:

(1) Applications - Browser plugins and mobile applications that seamlessly integrate Web3 decentralized applications into traditional social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It has now integrated decentralized applications including NFT avatars, Uniswap, OpenSea, Snapshot, Initial Twitter Offering, red envelopes, and RSS3-powered Web 3 personal homepages.

(2) Protocols - Decentralized identity aggregation protocol Next.ID: enabling users to have a holistic and verifiable identity graph across Web2 and Web3. Next.ID is the world's first ID aggregation service that can connect and integrate multiple Web2 and Web3 account or address data, supporting Twitter, Facebook, Ethereum, etc., and assessing connection strength to prevent phishing and bot attacks. Next.ID has already integrated with projects such as RSS3, Interface.social, SwapChat, and Web3.bio.