An Eventful Year Full of Milestones at Shima Capital
Written by: Shima Capital Staff
The year 2022 was one for the books, memorable for all the right reasons for Shima Capital, the early stage venture capital fund founded by Yida Gao (Forbes 30 Under 30).
Though it happened just beyond the half-year mark, the biggest highlight of the year coming from Shima was the announcement and launch of their $200 million Fund I! The news broke via Blockworks and was quickly picked up by Cointelegraph and Coindesk. Coming just a few short months after the collapse of the Terra / LUNA ecosystem, and prior to the unfortunate state of affairs that was FTX unraveling, Shima’s fund made waves in an industry hungry for a positive outlook.
Since January 01, Shima Capital’s investment team, led by Yida Gao, Managing General Partner, has invested in over 120 new projects. Even taking into consideration the current bear market conditions, that’s still an average 10 new investments per month, an incredible clip for any market.
Shima Capital’s investments, though focused entirely on blockchain and Web3 as a whole, have always been diverse in nature. Since Day One, Yida has stressed the importance of diversifying their portfolio to include DeFI (Decentralized Finance), Gaming & Metaverse, NFTs, Infrastructure, Consumer projects, and ReFi (Regenerative Finance).
So it’s no surprise that Shima’s investments in 2022 included something from every vertical. Some of the buzzier projects amongst those investments include Magna, Wombat Exchange, Midnight, 555 Comic, HypeLab, Momentum Safe, and many, many more. Shima Capital’s portfolio now sits at over 170 projects.
And it wasn’t just the portfolio that kept a solid pace throughout the year.
Among his many accomplishments at a relatively young age, Yida Gao can include MIT instructor on this list. Taking over from Gary Gensler, who’s been busy working as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Yida teaches the 15.492: Crypto Finance course at the prestigious school.
Throughout the year, Yida spoke on several panel discussions, gave many presentations, and was interviewed on multiple podcast / YouTube shows. In no particular order, he could be found in 2022 at the Legends4Legends conference in Amsterdam, Miami Web3 conference in Florida, on a CoinAgenda panel during Puerto Rico Blockchain Week, and on the Global Coin Research Podcast. Truthfully, there were too many engagements to list them all.
But it wasn’t just about attending and speaking at events, Yida Gao and Shima Capital hosted many of their own side events at conferences around the world this past year, including ETH Denver event with DoraHacks, NFT NYC event with Thomas Bravo, Breakpoint Lisbon event with 1inch, etc. One of the standout events was a private gathering of portfolio companies, valued partners, and other industry friends in a 54th floor Manhattan penthouse during the Messari Mainnet conference in September. Unmatched views and company were the highlights of that night.
Shima Capital’s most popular event though, recurring throughout the year, was co-host of the Breakfast with Your Crypto BFFs, which also included industry peers such as Sushi and Halborn. At events in Singapore, Lisbon, and San Francisco, Shima hosted a free networking breakfast for other attendees of the conferences. These were some of the most beloved events of the year, according to many who attended.
In between conferences, speaking engagements, and buzzy breakfasts, Yida Gao executed what he would call his greatest transactions of the year: growing the Shima Capital team. Nearly doubling in size, Yida has grown Shima’s core team to include experts in various fields such as metaverse, gaming, operations, marketing, and talent.
Yida takes great pride in his team not only identifying the top investment opportunities in the industry, but in offering unmatched value-add services to portfolio companies after they’ve been onboarded.
Investing Strategies and Philosophies, For Now and in the Future
When he founded Shima Capital in 2021, Yida Gao's investment strategy was to back great founders. This has been his philosophy throughout 2022 and will continue to be his approach in 2023. He looks for founders who are building projects and ecosystems that will appeal to a large number of individuals or organizations.
Shima’s areas of focus include consumer projects such as decentralized identity, content ownership, or DAOs; gaming and metaverse; composable financial systems like sustainable DeFi, regenerative finance, and payments & settlement; decentralized infrastructure in the form of data platforms, blockchain automation, or cross-chain communication; and next-generation blockchain technology such as Layers 1 and 2, zero-knowledge proofs, and security.
In the Web3 industry, the speed at which blockchain technology evolves and iterates can no longer be measured in years. The principle of Moore's Law, which states that the speed and capability of computers can be expected to double every two years, no longer applies. This means that what is impossible today may be possible in just a few months.
For Yida Gao and Shima Capital, investing in Web3 projects requires keeping a focus on the future and making educated guesses on current technology's relevance. The best safeguard is to constantly be learning by reviewing numerous project pitches each month. Gao has also built a team of experts with diverse skills and experience to ensure long-term success. However, no amount of research can guarantee a project's success. Building the strongest team possible with a diverse skill set is the best approach for Gao and Shima Capital.
The motto at Shima Capital is We run through walls for our founders and this is something Yida Gao takes very seriously. The past 12 months were full of new beginnings and rapid growth. Using 2022 as the benchmark, Yida will continue to ensure his team runs through even more walls in 2023.
