Steve Yun, former president and current board member of TON Foundation, has launched TVM Ventures, a new venture capital firm with an inaugural $100 million fund.

Yun and a Toncoin miner contributed to the fund's capital, Yun told The Block, declining to disclose the miner's identity or their specific contribution.

TVM Ventures takes its name from the TON Virtual Machine and it focuses on funding startups within the TON ecosystem, particularly in decentralized finance (DeFi) and payment finance (PayFi) verticals.

"Regarding DeFi, it will be imperative to build natively on TON, including the smart contract logic written on TVM directly," Yun said. "PayFi is cross-chain by nature and therefore more flexible, but 100% must support TON network."

Yun stepped down as president of the TON Foundation last month but remains an active board member. He formally established TVM Ventures in November 2024 and began operations soon after.

TVM Ventures follows the creation of another TON-focused VC firm, TON Ventures. It was founded last year by former TON Foundation members Ian Wittkopp and Inal Kardan with a $40 million inaugural fund.

According to Yun, TVM Ventures differs in its focus, prioritizing DeFi and PayFi verticals as it sees TON becoming the leading payment blockchain. "Our focus is to build an advanced and comprehensive financial system capable of meeting the financial needs of 500 million users in the next few years," he said.

TVM Ventures targets seed-stage investments at valuations of $5 million to $10 million, taking a leading position with check sizes between $500,000 and $1 million, Yun said. It also provides $5 million in "farming liquidity" to help protocols establish the minimum liquidity needed for their products to function, he added.

While its primary focus is early-stage investments, TVM may also invest smaller amounts in larger industry projects if they are strategic to building TON's ecosystem, Yun said. The firm invests in both equity and tokens of projects and aims to deploy its full capital within 24 months.

So far, TVM Ventures has invested in four TON-based startups. Those are Factorial, a Morpho-like modular lending platform on TON; Torch Finance, a stablecoin swap platform on TON; Fiva, a Pendle-like tokenized yield platform on TON; and Memes Lab, a memepad on TON/Telegram that allows users to buy memecoins with Telegram Stars, Yun said.

TON's app ecosystem and total value locked have yet to gain significant traction, but Yun expects major growth by Q2 2025 with the launch of the tgBTC bridge and a DeFi incentive initiative from the TON Foundation. He expects TON to capture major stablecoin market share within the next few years, predicting it will take 24 months to attract Tron-USDT users and 48 months for ETH-USDT users.

Yun expects TON's ecosystem to grow significantly over the next three to five years. He anticipates Telegram Wallet opening to U.S. users with an interface that aggregates multiple services. He also sees the TON Foundation becoming more independent and efficient, making "high-impact deals" that strengthen the ecosystem. Toncoin, currently trading at around $4 with a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion, could surpass $40 in the next bull cycle, representing a 900% increase, Yun predicted.

TVM Ventures is based in Dubai and Yun plans to hire researchers specializing in TVM architecture, on-chain analytics and FunC and Tolk, TON's smart contract languages.

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