The Spartan Group is one of Asia-Pacific’s most prominent crypto investment firms, operating across venture capital, quantitative trading, and advisory services. Founded in 2018 and headquartered across Hong Kong and Singapore, Spartan has built a reputation for early DeFi infrastructure investments — particularly in decentralized derivatives and cross-chain protocols. The firm was an early backer of Perpetual Protocol and Deri Protocol, reflecting a thesis that decentralized perpetuals would capture significant volume from centralized exchanges.
Background
Spartan was founded by a team with backgrounds in traditional finance, investment banking, and quantitative trading. The Asia-Pacific focus gives Spartan a natural edge in evaluating projects and teams based in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan — markets that drove significant DeFi and gaming volume during the 2020–2021 bull cycle.
The firm operates multiple functions under the Spartan Group umbrella:
- Spartan Capital — early and growth-stage venture investment
- Spartan Labs — incubation and advisory for portfolio companies
Investment Thesis
Spartan focuses on:
- Decentralized derivatives and perpetuals — betting that on-chain perps would replicate CEX volume
- Cross-chain and interoperability infrastructure — bridges and multi-chain liquidity
- Asia-Pacific emerging ecosystems — projects with strong Asian developer and user communities
- DeFi primitives — lending, AMMs, and yield protocols
Notable Investments
| Protocol | Category |
|---|---|
| Perpetual Protocol (PERP) | Decentralized perpetuals DEX |
| Deri Protocol | On-chain derivatives |
| DODO | Proactive Market Maker AMM |
| KyberSwap | DEX aggregator |
| AlphaFinance | Yield and leverage |
| Synthetix | Synthetic assets |
| Acala | Polkadot DeFi hub |
| Moonbeam | Polkadot EVM chain |
Market Position
Spartan is consistently ranked as one of the top 5–10 Asia-Pacific focused crypto funds. Its quantitative trading desk allows it to provide liquidity and market making services in addition to pure VC activity, creating a synergy between its investment and trading operations that is unusual in the crypto VC landscape.
Related Terms
Sources
- Spartan Group Website — official site with portfolio.
- CoinDesk — Spartan Group profile — coverage of Asia-Pacific crypto investing.
- The Block — DeFi derivatives thesis — context on decentralized perps investments.