Waterdrop Capital is steering a larger share of its portfolio companies toward U.S. public listings and operating revenue, a departure from the token-launch model that shaped much of the crypto venture market during previous cycles. Founder Da Shan said the firm has more than five portfolio companies either preparing for or progressing through Nasdaq listing processes, with at least five pursuing listings primarily on the strength of their underlying business metrics rather than a planned token issuance.
The strategy reflects a more selective approach from the Hong Kong-based investment firm, which has backed more than 200 crypto-related projects since Shan left Huawei HiSilicon in 2017. Waterdrop’s recent activity combines Bitcoin ecosystem investments, real-world-asset funds, and AI computing exposure, while placing less emphasis on broadly trading smaller crypto assets.
Shan’s view is that companies with measurable revenue and a viable U.S. listing path may have access to a different liquidity pool than projects dependent on crypto-market token demand. That calculation places Waterdrop among crypto-native firms trying to connect venture portfolios with conventional public-equity markets, rather than relying solely on token listings and exchange liquidity.
Nasdaq route puts operating revenue first
Good Vision AI illustrates the model Waterdrop is pursuing. Shan said the company shifted toward AI-related revenue growth while working on a public-listing route. Its revenue rose from roughly $2 million to $3 million in 2024 to about $7 million in 2025, according to his account, with revenue projected to reach about $70 million the following year.
Those figures remain company and fund projections, but they explain why Waterdrop is looking beyond token issuance for selected holdings. A listing based on revenue and operating performance would require companies to meet a different set of expectations from public-market participants, including sustained growth, corporate governance and financial disclosure.
The approach also separates Waterdrop’s portfolio construction from the earlier crypto venture pattern, in which a startup’s main liquidity event could be a token launch even before the business had established recurring income. Shan has argued that public-equity markets can offer more workable liquidity conditions for companies that have developed commercial operations.
Four funds reflect a narrower mandate structure
Waterdrop began working with a Pacific Insurance asset-management partner in 2022 after relocating operations to Hong Kong and establishing a limited-partnership fund structure. By 2025, the collaboration had created four sub-funds, each with its own mandate.
The first was an early-stage venture capital fund that completed its deployment after investing in around 40 projects. A second vehicle traded secondary-market altcoins and has since been liquidated. A third fund held only Bitcoin and was Waterdrop’s best-performing product among the four, according to the firm. Its strategy used a market-cycle approach and made no more than two trades a year.
The fourth fund was limited to real-world-asset themes, an area commonly known as RWA, where financial or physical assets are represented on blockchain-based rails. Restricting that vehicle to a single theme suggests Waterdrop is seeking tighter risk boundaries after years in which crypto funds often held a mix of early-stage tokens, liquid assets and infrastructure bets in one portfolio.
Waterdrop was founded in 2017 with capital contributed equally by partners who already held personal positions in crypto assets and early networks. The firm has said only three portfolio exits generated realized returns of 100 times or more: Ethereum, Cosmos and Polkadot. The limited number underscores how concentrated venture outcomes can be even for firms that have made hundreds of investments.
Bitcoin infrastructure takes priority over inscriptions
In 2024, Waterdrop increased its exposure to the Bitcoin ecosystem, backing projects including River, Lorenzo, Particle, Merlin and Bsquare. The firm said it supported more than a dozen Bitcoin Layer 2 and infrastructure-oriented projects that remained operational and contributed to the latest fund’s net asset value.
Bitcoin Layer 2 networks seek to move some transactions or applications away from Bitcoin’s base chain while retaining a connection to its security or settlement layer. Waterdrop avoided inscription-related trading, according to Shan, separating its investment choices from one of the more speculative segments of Bitcoin’s recent on-chain activity.
That distinction suggests the firm is betting on service layers—such as scaling systems, liquidity infrastructure and application tools—rather than short-term demand for collectible-style assets or token launches. The strategy also fits a fund manager whose Bitcoin-only vehicle has outperformed its other products: infrastructure investments can extend exposure to the Bitcoin economy without requiring a portfolio to depend entirely on Bitcoin’s price.
Shan said he personally accumulated Bitcoin as it declined from around $80,000 through $70,000 and $60,000, ending with a larger position than he held during the previous market cycle. He did not present that activity as a short-term trading forecast, and Waterdrop’s own Bitcoin fund has been structured around infrequent cycle-based decisions rather than frequent market timing.
AI computing adds a second infrastructure bet
Alongside crypto investing, Shan has taken a chairman role at an AI company focused on data-center computing. He has pointed to the scale of U.S. AI infrastructure spending as a demand driver, saying investment exceeded $500 billion in 2025 and could reach at least $1 trillion in 2026.
His more cautious argument concerns the timing of supply. Data centers can take two years or longer to build and begin operating, Shan said, raising the prospect that a large volume of new capacity could arrive after autumn 2028. If construction pipelines are completed in a concentrated period, available supply could expand by more than tenfold, depending on whether AI-agent applications generate enough computing demand to absorb it.
That potential mismatch places Waterdrop’s AI exposure closer to an infrastructure-cycle trade than a simple wager on software valuations. Computing capacity, power access, chips and data-center construction each have physical limits that differ sharply from the faster funding cycles common in token markets.
Waterdrop is also exploring the tokenization of pre-IPO private equity, which Shan described as a possible way to distribute private-company allocations in smaller ticket sizes and nearer to institutional entry costs. Such structures would face substantial legal, custody and transfer restrictions depending on the jurisdiction and asset involved. For Waterdrop, the idea fits the same direction as its Nasdaq strategy: using blockchain-based ownership tools while tying value more closely to operating businesses and conventional capital-market routes.
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