Venture Capital crypto fund C1 Fund has been meeting a number of Australian businesses offering to buy private holdings from investors, reports the Australian Financial Review.

C1 is a $500 million fund managed by investors based in Silicon Valley and the United Arab Emirates. The management team includes co-founders Dr Najamul Kidwai, Michael Lempress, Michael (Xu) Zhao, David Hytha, and Cheriyl Lakshmy. The fund invests in blockchain, crypto, and Web3 companies.

The investment managers have been busy meeting with the blockchain-based gaming firm Animoca Brands and Chainalysis in Australia offering to buy private holdings from investors between 50 to 80% discount on their last valuation, said the report.  The venture capital fund C1 said it wanted to write cheques between $20 million and $50 million for businesses.

C1 co-founder Dr. Najamul Kidwai has denied the report and told CoinDesk – “C1 did not authorize this article, and we have not met with either company directly as of this time.”

So far, it has been a slow year for venture capitalists. Since the crypto winter began in 2022, there has been a sharp decline in activity. FundStrat reports that venture capital funding for crypto firms contracted for a sixth successive quarter to $1.4 billion in Q3 2023, while the number of individual deals dropped 30% to 214.