Jeff Ren, head of OKX Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2024 Powerlist.
Jeff Ren leads OKX Ventures, the venture capital arm of OKX, one of the largest crypto exchanges by trading volume globally. It has become one of the most prolific investors in cryptocurrency and Web3 startups, building an ecosystem and tirelessly driving the mass adoption of Web3.
Launched in 2021, OKX Ventures has been one of the most active corporate venture units in recent years. It has participated in more than 190 rounds since inception, according to PitchBook, having backed 180 projects to date.
The unit was initially equipped with $100m in capital, which it aims to deploy on high-quality projects with great potential. Its mandate covers anything from improving basic Web3 infrastructure through trading fintech and backing popular blockchain ecosystems such as Polkadot and Solana to blockchain applications including browsers, wallets and other Web3 tools.
Some of the recent rounds backed by OKX Ventures include the $38m series A round by US-based Movement Labs, which runs a platform offering a composable and horizontally scalable network and provides smart contract security and asset portability. OKX Ventures also backed the $10m series A round raised by gaming platform developer Carv. The platform offers a credential-based gaming infrastructure. OKX also invested in Lumos, a startup developing technology to mitigate the high compute costs associated with cryptocurrency use.
Launched in 2021, OKX Ventures has been one of the most active corporate venture units in recent years, having backed 180 projects to date.
Prior to joining OKX Technologies in 2018, Ren was managing director at private equity investments at Citic Securities International, China’s investment bank. He was also managing director and partner at Yuan Capital and worked in investment banking institutions UBS and Lehman Brothers. Before moving into investing, Ren worked at several law firms.
He holds a law degree from Peking University, as well as a master of laws graduate qualification from Harvard Law School.
The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100
individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.
