Review of the performance of 10 TON investment institutions: financing scale, investment cost, and investment return rate

Original author: Nancy, PANews

After years of ups and downs and twists and turns, TON has now ranked among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market value. The rapid growth in user base, capital scale, and token prices has made it one of the crypto projects with the strongest development momentum in this bull market.

TONs transformation from a thousand-mile horse is inseparable from the wisdom of Bo Le. According to CoinCarp data, TON has completed seven rounds of financing so far, but only publicly disclosed two rounds of investment of US$16 million, and no more information was released for the remaining five rounds. Among them, from the perspective of investment institutions, participating institutions include Runa Capital, RTP Global, DWF Labs, Mask Network, Mexc Ventures, Animoca Brands, Mirana Ventures and Pantera Capital. Compared with other public chain projects, TON has more Web2 participating institutions and relatively fewer head crypto VCs; from the official announcement of financing time, TON, founded in 2018, was first invested in 2021, and the year with the most financing was 2023, with a total of 3 rounds of financing.

In this article, PANews takes stock of the financing scale, investment cost and investment return rate of 10 TON investment institutions that have disclosed information. The investment scale of these VCs ranges from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. The lowest cost of building a position is less than US$0.78, and the highest rate of return may exceed 14 times.

Runa Capital and RTP Global

Runa Capital is a $270 million technology-focused venture capital firm that focuses on fintech, education, digital healthcare, etc., with assets of over $10 billion in companies it has invested in or incubated. TON is the only blockchain company that has received direct funding from Runa Capital since its founding. RTP Global, which focuses on early-stage technology companies, was one of the first companies to provide financial and expert support to major European technology companies such as Yandex and Delivery Hero, and its portfolio includes 183 companies, including 15 unicorns.

In April 2021, TON announced a $6 million seed round led by RTP Global and Runa Capital. According to TON Labs co-founder Alexander Filatov, the financing was completed in 2022, which means that the investment institutions of these two institutions were lower than the launch price of $0.78 in August 2021, and the return on investment exceeded 9.9 times.

Pantera Capital

In May 2024, Pantera Capital, a crypto venture capital firm that manages more than $5 billion in assets, announced its investment in TON, the largest investment in the funds history. It said, I believe TON has the ability to promote cryptocurrency to the public because it is widely used in the Telegram network, and further explained the reason for its heavy position in TON. Although Pantera Capital did not disclose the specific amount and the price discount it purchased, it has previously disclosed that it purchased up to $250 million in discounted SOL tokens from FTX Estate, indicating that the institution will invest more than this amount in TON.

At the end of June, an email sent by Pantera Capital to potential investors also showed that the agency was raising a new fund to purchase more TON tokens, with a minimum investment of $250,000 per supporter. Pantera Capital previously revealed that Pantera Fund V will raise its first round of funds in the first quarter of 2025, with a target of $1 billion.

Kingsway Capital

Manuel Stotz, founder and CEO of Kingsway Capital, is a member of the board of directors of the TON Foundation. The Block reported that Kingsway Capitals largest token holding to date is also TON, which it has been purchasing for more than two years. Judging from the price trend of TON between July 2021 and July 2022, Kingsway Capitals position building cost was no more than $4.5 at most and about $0.55 at least. According to CoinGecko data, as of July 1, the price of TON was $7.71, which means that Kingsway Capitals return rate may be between 1.7 times and 14 times.

Ryze Labs

Founded in 2015, Ryze Labs was formerly known as Sino Global Capital, with an investment portfolio that includes Solana, LayerZero, Polygon, and Wintermute. Ryze Labs launched a $200 million fund in 2021, with the bankrupt FTX as its main investor. Ian Wittkopp, head of the TON Foundation, was the former chief operating officer and investment director of Sino Global Capital.

In a report by The Block, Matthew Graham, founding and managing partner of Ryze Labs, revealed that Ryze has been a “big buyer” of TON tokens.

Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands announced a strategic investment in the TON ecosystem in November 2023 and became the largest validator of the TON blockchain, providing funding, research and analysis platforms for third-party TON ecosystem mini-applications.

Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu revealed in an interview with The Block that the company began buying TON tokens when the price was below $1, and then continued to buy at $1, $1.5 and $2. According to CoinGeckos price trend, excluding early participation, Animoca Brands may have built positions from March to December 2022 and from May to September 2023, and now the return rate is between 3.85 times and 7.7 times.

Mirana Ventures

In March 2024, Mirana Ventures announced a new long-term partnership with TON, which included the purchase of TON for $8 million on the secondary market. At that time, the price of TON was less than $2.7, and the return rate as of July 1, 2024 was over 2.8 times.

DWF Labs

In November 2022, DWF Labs announced a commitment of $10 million to support the TON ecosystem, with plans to make a total of 50 seed investments in the next 12 months. According to CoinGecko prices, TONs price between November 2022 and November 2023 is approximately between $1.68 and $2.54, and the return rate is more than 3 to 4.5 times based on the current price (July 1). This year, TON also announced a partnership with DWF Labs and is looking for project partners and investors to develop games and SocialFi mini-apps on the TON blockchain.

Mask Network

Mask Network announced its investment in TON in May 2023, but did not disclose the amount. Based on the price of about $2 at the time, Mask Networks return rate exceeded 3.8 times. In the staking plan launched this year, Mask Network also included TON tokens as rewards.

Mexc Ventures

Mexc Ventures announced an eight-figure investment in TON in October 2023, but did not disclose the exact amount. Based on the market price of $2 at the time, Mexc Ventures return rate was about 3.8 times.

It should be noted that in the crypto space, VCs often have a lock-up period of a certain period of time, and unlock their positions linearly, rather than selling them off all at once.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that TON previously obtained $1.7 billion in financing through multiple rounds of ICOs, with prices ranging from $0.37 to $1.33. A list submitted by the SEC to the U.S. District Court in New York shows that investors include Norma Investments Limited, a fund owned by Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich, which invested $10 million, Larnabel Ventures, the investment arm of Russian tycoon Mikhail Gutseriev and his family, which invested $15 million, Batios Holdings Limited, a fund owned by former Russian cabinet minister Abyzov, Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Sergey Solonin, co-founder of Ross payment giant Qiwi.

However, due to the SECs lawsuit, TON also announced in 2020 that its mainnet launch time would be postponed to April 2022. If investors disagree, Telegram will return 72% of the investment, or investors can lend their investment to Telegram as a loan and receive 110% of their original investment by April 30, 2021. If investors choose to keep their investment, the current rate of return is nearly 5.8 times to 20.8 times.

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