Ripple launches a $100M fund, overseen by Forte, to encourage integration of blockchain into games, such as in-game marketplaces, with grants to developers
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune :
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2019 fund is a continuation of Ripple's playbook of buying ecosystem adoption rather than building it directly: it had already seeded research through the University Blockchain Research Initiative and placed XRP directly with investors when Blockchain Capital accepted $25M of the coin alongside its new fund. Handing oversight to Forte outsources execution to a specialist gaming-infrastructure startup rather than running grants in-house.
What makes this story worth revisiting is how the bet aged inside the corpus: Forte went on to raise a $725M Series B that took its total funding to $900M, and Ripple itself doubled down on creator-focused crypto funds with a $250M NFT fund in 2021 — evidence that the gaming-and-creators vertical became Ripple's most durable use-case thesis.
First-order effects
- Game developers gain a new non-dilutive funding source for adding in-game marketplaces and other blockchain features, with Forte acting as the gatekeeper deciding which projects get grants.
Second-order effects
- Forte converts stewardship of Ripple's capital into credibility and deal flow, positioning it ahead of competitors for the infrastructure role as studios weigh which blockchain stack to adopt.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, crypto platforms compete for developer mindshare through dedicated vertical funds rather than protocol marketing alone — a structure Ripple repeated at larger scale with its NFT fund, and one that concentrates early-stage crypto capital in the hands of a few fund administrators.
The trend: Crypto platforms are deploying dedicated vertical funds — first universities, then games, then NFT creators — to purchase developer adoption where organic demand is thin.