OKX Ventures, the investment arm of leading crypto exchange and global onchain technology company OKX, today announced a $5 million investment in TON Ventures, a venture capital fund dedicated to accelerating growth within The Open Network (TON) blockchain ecosystem. The investment is aimed at establishing a network of experienced builders to develop best practices for TON applications.
This move complements OKX Ventures' recently launched $10 Million Telegram Growth Hub, in partnership with The Open Platform and Folius Ventures, by focusing on technical expertise and development standards. With direct access to Telegram's 950 million monthly active users and successful mini-apps like Notcoin, OKX Racer and Catizen, TON continues to demonstrate strong potential for mass adoption.
Led by former TON Foundation executives Ian Wittkopp (Director of Acceleration) and Inal Kardan (Gaming Lead), TON Ventures is primarily focused on backing early-stage consumer applications building on TON, with an emphasis on decentralized finance, gaming, creator economy and infrastructure projects. The fund has shown early success backing projects like the DeLabs and Goat Gaming platforms, creator economy infrastructure like Memetics that enable Telegram communities to build mini-economies, and AI applications like Grably that leverage TON and Telegram to source data for AI models.
OKX Ventures Partner Jeff Ren said: "As one of TON's earliest supporters, our investment in and partnership with TON Ventures deepens our commitment to fostering a robust ecosystem of skilled builders. The TON ecosystem needs experienced developers who understand both technical best practices and user experience requirements for Telegram-native applications. This investment, alongside our recently launched Telegram Growth Hub, demonstrates our long-term conviction in TON's potential to drive mainstream adoption of onchain technologies. We're excited to work closely with TON Ventures' founding team, whose deep ecosystem expertise will be invaluable in scaling the next generation of TON-native applications."
TON Ventures Partner Ian Wittkopp said: “The OKX Ventures team were one of the first supporters of the TON value proposition, which sits at the intersection of Telegram’s social graph and TON’s blockchain rails, to develop a vibrant ecosystem of Web3 consumer applications that would onboard millions of people. They have done an amazing job attracting and funding top-tier developers, pushing the TON ecosystem to new heights. We are thrilled to deepen our relationship with the OKX Ventures team and work closely with them for many years to come.”
Having secured $40 million in initial funding, TON Ventures combines deep ecosystem expertise through its founders Ian and Inal. The fund typically deploys investments of up to $500,000 for early-stage projects, while maintaining flexibility for larger opportunities. In the coming months, TON Ventures will focus on supporting the emergence of midcore gaming experiences, an expansion of monetization tools available to creators and the continued growth of the decentralized finance sector on TON.
