Animoca Brands Corp. founder Yat Siu helped engineer the merger of two startups his firm backed, aiming to create a data and news service as the embattled crypto industry consolidates.
Data tracker CryptoSlam and Forkast.News will combine to become Forkast Labs, which will provide news as well as tools for investors to track digital assets. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, marks the latest tie-up in an industry struggling to secure funding after FTX’s collapse spooked investors.
Forkast.News founder Angie Lau, a former Bloomberg TV anchor, and CryptoSlam creator Randy Wasinger will share chief executive officer duties for the newly combined entity, according to a company release Tuesday.
Siu, who continues to make investments in a blockchain world rocked by a series of collapses and bankruptcies, has become one of the troubled sector’s most influential investors. He introduced the startup founders to each other and helped get discussions off the ground.
“This industry is very unstable and rocky,” Siu said. “People have to be able to weather these storms together.”
Launched in 2018, CryptoSlam is one of the most-used trackers of transactions of non-fungible tokens like Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars. Animoca led a $9 million seed round for the data provider a year ago. The Hong Kong-based blockchain investor and games studio earlier participated in a $1.7 million capital raise for Forkast.News, which specializes in video journalism.
Both firms have been generating revenue on their own, but for Forkast.News at least, there have been quarters during the broader market decline in 2022 where it was in the red, Lau said. The combined company, which has about 60 employees globally, will find a way to generate “sustainable profit,” she added, without elaborating on its financials or valuation.
Forkast Labs will go up against the likes of CoinDesk, which is part of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, as a source for crypto news and analytics.
