Hanwha Solutions CEO meets with US blockchain VCs

President and co-CEO of Hanwha Solutions Corp. Kim Dong-kwan met with heads of major blockchain venture capital firms while visiting the United States last month, a South Korean daily reported on Monday. 

The Hanwha Group heir met with Menlo Park-based venture capital firm Andressen Horowitz and suggested investments worth tens of billions of won, according to Money Today. Kim also reportedly met with several other firms that invest in early stage blockchain startups.

On June 24 last year, Andreessen Horowitz announced a new $2.2 billion crypto fund dubbed Crypto Fund III to continue investing in digital asset networks and the founders and teams building in the space. 

Hanwha Systems Co., another subsidiary of the Hanwha Group, launched EnterpriseBlockchain Co. last June to bolster its blockchain solutions arm.

Hanwha Investment & Securities, for its part, joined forces with Lambda 256, a subsidiary of Dunamu Inc. for investment purposes. Dunamu is the operator of leading cryptocurrency exchange platform Upbit. 

Hanwha Investment and the blockchain research arm of Dunamu have put an accumulated total of 11.3 billion won ($9 million) into blockchain startups since 2020. The joint-equity value is estimated to be around 37.4 billion won. 

Write to Market Insight Newsroom at insight@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.