On Aug. 23, Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the largest crypto exchange in the world, announced an investment in Pendle Finance, a tokenized yield protocol. Yi He, the head of Binance Labs, and Yibo Ling, the chief business officer of Binance Labs, have said that Binance Labs invests prudently in projects that support Binance's vision of the future of decentralized finance. 

"Binance Labs is always looking for projects that are spearheading innovation in DeFi sectors that will enable access to a wider audience," Yi He said, according to a Binance blog post. "Pendle Finance's focus on multi-chain expansion and innovative yield strategies align with our vision for the future of DeFi. We look forward to working closely with Pendle Finance and supporting their journey of reshaping the DeFi landscape towards a more inclusive ecosystem."

Pendle Finance has developed several features that make it easy for users to manage their yield, according to the blog post. Binance Labs' investment will help Pendle Finance become more inclusive and accessible to a wider range of users, including retail and institutional investors.

Ling said in an interview with CoinDesk that Binance Labs has continued to grow in part because of a belief that Web3 and blockchain technology have not yet reached their full potential and could see an "explosive" expansion in use cases outside of the financial industry, CoinDesk reported. “We are very much long-term investors in this space. We're not a fly by night – come in, and try to get a quick hit and move on because our core business is obviously long on the entire industry,” Ling said.

Ling said Binance Labs has taken a more conservative approach to investing than the venture capital (VC) arm of FTX, a crypto exchange that collapsed and filed for bankruptcy last fall, CoinDesk reported. “We were always surprised by the level of investment that [FTX] made in their VC arm, as well as their marketing,” Ling said. “We’re obviously much bigger than they are, and we were looking at how they were spending money and how we were spending money and we were just scratching our heads on how they had the resources available to do what they did."

FTX's VC arm invested billions in 2022, participating in almost 50 rounds of funding and leading or co-leading 19 of those rounds, CrunchBase reported.