Writers: Jaleel Plus Six, BUBBLE, BlockBeats

Editors: Jack, Zhang Wen, BlockBeats

This article acknowledges all interviewed agencies: Evie (JE Labs); Miko (Hyperion); Er Gou (BLOCKFOCUS); Dov, Gary, Joyce (Mango Labs); Sam (WOK Labs), (Anonymous), and others.

KOL Agencies are replacing Crypto VCs.

Over the weekend, another once glorious Chinese crypto VC came to a halt. Amidst a global financial market liquidity crunch, the crypto industry is going through a long "crypto winter," and venture capital (VC) is experiencing an unprecedented chill. However, KOL Agencies, a track that suddenly emerged in this cycle, are currently enjoying spring.

In a conversation with BlockBeats, Mango Labs founder Dov was walking home after dinner. His current work pace is even busier than when he was a VC, with a flood of business and project demands. Every day, he is either in a meeting or making impromptu calls on the side of the road. Since working full-time in the Agency business, both his identity and pace have changed.

The project is challenging, VC is struggling, but on the other hand, in the past six months, more than 20 KOL Agencies have emerged in the market, becoming one of the hottest and most profitable new business models of the year. Dov, who was in the VC field a year ago, seems to have already anticipated the industry's change.

"Many VCs are not having a good year, and now they are starting to transform into Agencies," said Miko, the founder of Hyperion. One of their core team members closed their own VC last month and joined the Agency track.

This seems to be an industry trend, as most core team members of Agencies have prior investment experience.

Agency is gradually becoming the "next stop" for VCs. When VCs lose their appeal to retail investors, Agencies become the new market narrative creators. This is the winter of VCs and the spring of KOL Agencies.

The "Next Stop" for VCs

Before a project goes live, if they want to generate some buzz on Twitter, the most common action is to seek help from KOLs for retweets, long posts, profile mentions, and AMAs. But here's the problem: Who will post? What will they post? How to contact KOLs? How to evaluate ROI? For a new project, even the first step can be extremely challenging.

Projects need exposure but lack marketing expertise; KOLs have content but lack connections. This is the real background behind the emergence of KOL Agencies, a business born in the market's information asymmetry and trust demand.

"At that time, I was attending a conference in Denver, and many foreign project teams directly asked me if I could introduce them to Chinese KOLs," recalled Dov. "I casually helped a project connect with a Chinese KOL, and the result was unexpectedly good."

Initially, he didn't plan to fully commit to an Agency. However, in the process of helping out on multiple occasions, he keenly sensed an industry trend: "KOLs are flipping VC, and this will be a very key trend."

Upon returning to China, he didn't immediately go all-in but instead tried it out slowly. It wasn't until the end of 2023, at an event in Hong Kong, that he strongly felt the potential of the Agency model once again. It was at that time that his partner Lolo took the initiative to join him, and the two quickly reached an agreement.

"She said the logic I mentioned about 'KOL flipping VC' was spot on, and we could do something together. I felt the timing was right, so I took on a few projects. At that time, we didn't have many projects, and things were lukewarm."

The turning point came in January 2025, when Dov's Mango Labs entered a period of explosive growth, with traffic and partnership projects seeing significant increases. This period also marked the "ascension" of the entire KOL Agency model.

Another BLOCKFOCUS co-founder, Er Gou, was also among the first group of people in the Chinese community to engage in the Agency business. When he entered the circle in 2018, Er Gou was working in a software company managing marketing and KOL collaborations. Just a year later, he started managing KOL accounts himself, from creating content and riding on hot topics to engaging in community interactions, gradually "playing" with his own KOL identity.

"When I first started on Twitter, I only had 100 followers, but a top influencer was already following me." At that time, Er Gou was still in his second year of college, being the youngest in the circle but very active. It was also the age of daring to explore at 19, and Er Gou jokingly said, "I was the Eason Chan of that era."

With the accumulation of connections and resources, Er Gou officially launched BLOCKFOCUS's Agency business in 2021, helping projects find suitable KOLs for marketing and promotion.

"We Are Not an MCN"

If you have ever paid attention to the traditional internet celebrity economy, you must be familiar with the term "MCN." Fundamentally, the role of a KOL Agency is very similar to that of an MCN in the Web2 world.

In the Web2 context, MCN (Multi-Channel Network) acts as the "middleman" between brands and internet celebrities: brands do not need to individually coordinate with internet celebrities but instead sign unified contracts, determine pricing, and manage through the MCN company, arranging content production and distribution in a centralized manner.

However, an MCN also has its characteristics of "heavy industry." A friend working in a traditional economy company told BlockBeats that in Hangzhou, the most famous MCN company, Yoyi Media, internet celebrities usually sign exclusive contracts with agencies for 3-10 years, with the MCN being fully responsible for commercialization. Platform revenue sharing, brand placements, account management... even the internet celebrity's "rise to fame pace" are all meticulously designed by the company.

This model once dominated the short video era, but when directly applied to Web3, it has become somewhat out of place.

"Web3 has no contractual force. The KOLs you nurture can leave at will, go wherever they want." Er Gou, the original founder of BLOCKFOCUS, also considered signing KOLs initially, but after consulting with a lawyer, he found that this approach is not viable in Web3.

So this is also the current situation of all KOL Agencies: "Not cultivating KOLs, nor signing exclusivity agreements."

Compared to the "buyout-style management" of Web2, in Web3, KOLs are more like freelancers. They can take on Project A today, Project B tomorrow, or even work for multiple agencies simultaneously.

This point is deeply resonated with by Hyperion's founder, Miko.

Founded in 2019, Hyperion initially focused on integrated marketing on Web2 platforms—Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kwai, Video Number... The team developed comprehensive communication strategies for brand clients, linking KOL resources, delivery plans, and conversion paths to help brands explode their products in a short period. Until 2023, Hyperion officially transitioned into the Web3 field.

To adapt to this more "wild" and distributed market environment, Hyperion made some changes in its organizational structure and execution methods: not signing and cultivating KOLs, only engaging in flexible cooperation: "Web3 KOLs cannot be controlled. We will not sign or buyout anyone. What we do is cooperate, not control."

Circle Barrier

Although Web3 lacks exclusive and buyout contracts at the contractual level, in this industry that highly relies on relationships and trust, Agencies, KOLs, and project parties also have their own "circles" culture and barriers.

"Many KOLs quote us the market's lowest price, publicly quoting $5,000, $8,000, but privately telling us 'just give whatever you think is appropriate.' Every cooperating KOL is Er Gou's good friend."

This relationship not only limits to business cooperation but also extends to daily emotional management. Er Gou and the team will send cakes and greeting cards on holidays, play games and dine with KOLs, and even rely on "personal connections" to address post-deletion and PR issues in the event of a crisis.

"We understand how each KOL started, what kind of content they are good at, the demographics of their fans, and even know their recent emotional status," Er Gou said. "Only with in-depth understanding can we achieve true ad placement matching."

This emotionally and cognitively based cooperative relationship makes some KOLs more willing to cooperate with a specific agency for the long term, reducing the cost of repeated screening and communication, and also allowing the agency to gradually form its own "exclusive resource pool."

Culture plays a significant role not only in the KOL network of ToC but also in the project resources layer of ToB.

Especially in today's context of a shrinking primary market and intensified information asymmetry, the ability to grasp a project and penetrate the core community has become a key factor in determining whether a new agency can survive.

All of this requires strong industry connections and resource endorsements. That's why most top agency founders have backgrounds in VC or CEX. They understand project logic better and are more likely to access resources at the early stages of a project.

Evie, the founder of JE Labs, who has a background in traditional consulting firms, crypto VCs, and personal IP development, started JE Labs' agency business after leaving OKX Web3 Wallet in June 2024. She revealed that currently, JE Labs has almost no full-time business development (BD) staff. In the industry, almost all agency BD work is personally handled by the founders, including Evie.

"The type of projects you engage with and collaborate with can clearly demonstrate the circle you belong to, with that circle's endorsement behind you." Resource accumulation and network endorsement determine whether an agency can secure the first batch of truly high-quality projects. These "early-stage projects" are the starting point for building a reputation loop.

A More Advanced Agency, Moving Towards "Investmentization"

As this industry gradually matures and competition increases, without a moat and a deeper business fortress, everyone can only engage in "service fee" internal competition, leading to an overall decrease in industry revenue. However, these smart individuals from the VC world have long been aware of this. Therefore, more advanced agencies are starting to transform. They are no longer just intermediaries between KOLs and project teams but are evolving into strategic partners with "investment logic."

Take JE Labs as an example. A successful deployment strategy depends on an execution team that understands the industry and excels at implementation. The JE Labs team consists of members from diverse backgrounds such as consulting, VC, exchanges, and marketing at web2 giants, providing both a macroscopic market understanding and frontline operational experience. This interdisciplinary team structure allows the team to quickly grasp the narrative focal points of projects in different tracks and flexibly adapt to communication needs at different stages. Within JE Labs, Evie categorizes business services into four types, each corresponding to four different collaboration models:

1. Pure KOL promotion service: According to the project's needs, the agency is responsible for KOL selection, scheduling execution, design of promotion direction/talking points, usually charging a 20% service fee.

2. Customized Consulting Service: When a project has more complex needs, such as founder IP development, community growth strategy formulation, narrative design, or end-to-end AMA planning, JE Labs will provide monthly billing based on the complexity and level of commitment. However, to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of such collaborations, a minimum 3-month collaboration model will be established.

3. KOL Round, Community Round: If a project team wishes to raise funds through KOL rounds, community rounds, etc., the Agency will offer a "Fundraising Service Package" including narrative packaging, airdrop planning, distribution logic, and KOL mobilization. The fee structure is generally based on a percentage of the total fundraising amount in tokens.

4. Long-term Advisory Collaboration: Similar to a Part-time CMO. For promising projects, JE can serve as a part-time CMO or marketing advisor, participating in rhythm planning, strategy design, and international deployment. The fee structure is "monthly payment + Token incentives," and this type of collaboration is only open to a very limited number of projects.

Evie refers to this as "Resource Leverage Investment" — deeply integrating cognition, resources, and influence into the project, gaining genuine strategic influence while receiving tokens.

She bluntly says, "In today's market, there are many people who understand marketing, and there are quite a few who understand the crypto industry. However, those who can integrate the two and provide truly effective advice at the strategic level to the project are few and far between."

"How to craft the narrative? How to align the economic model with the market? How to synchronize KOL distribution with the rhythm? We serve not the KOLs but the business logic." Evie summarizes the true value of the Agency in this way.

She believes that agencies that only focus on KOL partnerships actually have very limited moats. Those that gradually transition into "strategic advisors + resource partners" have deeper client stickiness and business sustainability.

Most of the surviving top agencies on the market have shifted their focus from "execution" to "running alongside," relying on the latter three types of businesses — fundraising support, in-depth consulting, strategic alignment, to build a more stable cash flow and deeper industry moats.

VC Metamorphosis: The Agency Emerging Strong from the Winter

In fact, KOL agencies did not emerge as a new business in this cycle; its rudimentary form was established in the past few cycles.

During the NFT bull market, a wave of "MCN teams" serving NFT projects briefly emerged, responsible for community building, whitelist activities, Discord and WeChat group maintenance, and overall coordination of early-stage AMA promotions. Many NFT project teams at that time were not familiar with Web3's operational logic, especially those traditional IPs migrating from Web2. They were unfamiliar with the KOL pricing system, unsure of which hands to entrust promotions to, and lacked the influence to speak within the community.

So, this kind of MCN took on the initial function of "content packaging + traffic landing," to some extent, it is the prototype of a KOL Agency.

By 2021-2022, global liquidity was flooding, and the primary market was thriving. VCs held huge sums of money, constantly seeing the emergence of king-level funding for public chain projects, ZK infrastructure, and Layer2 protocols, with frequent multi-million-dollar financings.

When money is no longer the scarcest resource, other resources become scarce.

With too many projects, post-investment resources are severely insufficient. For project teams, what they lack the most is not money but the need for more direct incubation resources. Thus, another role closer to the project's "actual growth needs" was born in the industry's self-adjustment: the Incubator / Accelerator.

These incubators usually do not make investment decisions but act as part of the VC post-investment team, providing "landing assistance" services from team building, incentive system design, media promotion, community operation, to user growth path planning, with Tokens as a reward. In a way, this model further approaches the current Agency ecosystem.

It can be said that the MCN is a "content-type precursor," while the Incubator is a "structural-type precursor." The emergence of the Agency is precisely taking over the "reconstruction after the failure" of the two in the Web3 scene.

And today, with the primary market slowing down, the secondary market ebbing, and VCs entering a collective "silence" period, Agencies have found a new upward path instead.

As Evie put it: "Today's project teams may not necessarily lack money, but they definitely lack resources, execution, and a team to accompany their growth."

And Agencies happen to fill this new blank of the era-helping build narratives with cognition, connecting communities with resources, and participating in financing and listing paths with strategies.

The Disappearance of the VC Bonus

If the previous cycle was the VC's heyday, then in this cycle, they are facing a collective crisis of failure.

In Dov's view, the reason VCs are "falling behind" in this cycle ultimately comes down to a mismatch of supply and demand and the end of the era's bonus.

"Why do projects now experience price dumps as soon as they launch? There are too many projects and too few retail investors. Everyone is vying for attention and liquidity, which are precisely what is most scarce," Dov said.

Dov talked about macro thinking: In the last cycle, there was a global flood of liquidity, and after the pandemic, global asset prices collectively inflated, with new highs in the US stock market, a booming real estate market in third-world countries, and exceptionally hot domestic primary investment. Amid everyone constantly seeking new assets, cryptocurrency naturally became the "new gateway to overseas" in the eyes of retail investors. In that context, Crypto VCs found themselves at the forefront: with very low initial costs, rapidly rising valuations, projects raising multiple rounds of funding even before launching, and achieving significant gains on paper.

"You can understand Crypto as a split plate of traditional finance, where money that had nowhere to go at the time flowed in here," Dov recalled. "In the previous cycle, VCs were the biggest beneficiaries of the era's dividend."

But in this cycle, the US dollar printing press was turned off, retail investors withdrew, the market cooled down, and everything changed.

Many projects that VCs invested in had not found PMF (Product-Market Fit), had no user traction, products were not deployed, and tokens didn't even have the courage to go online. Even if they went online, they were often "filled at the opening." Some projects hadn't even unlocked their tokens when they started modifying terms: extending lock-up periods, lowering valuations, or even enforcing buybacks.

There was no way out in the primary market, and no buying interest in the secondary market. VCs, once mythologized, have now become the "industry parasites" in retail investors' eyes. "It's like playing a meme coin, VCs filled the inner plate waiting for retail investors to come in, but those retail investors definitely won't come in."

VCs ran out of money, but the projects still needed someone to take over, so they turned to KOLs. Therefore, in 2024, the "KOL Round" began to rise in popularity, and it has even evolved to today's "Community Round."

This is a "bank run" that was bound to happen sooner or later.

Comparing his experience in traditional PE, Dov said, "In the past, when we invested in consumer brands, the starting point for a case was one to two billion US dollars. At that time, the market was too hot, some projects didn't even have profits, yet their valuation was 100 times their revenue, completely irrational."

The same story happened in Crypto. Over the past two years, Crypto VCs took massive amounts of US dollar funds and invested everywhere in "concept projects." "But when they went online, they found that no one was using them, no one was buying, and no one trusted them. These projects became 'paper wealth' piled on the table, each of which couldn't be traded."

"These changes are part of the global era's transformation, and they have nothing to do with exchanges, VCs, project teams, KOLs, or communities. A grain of sand of the era is a mountain in the industry," Dov told BlockBeats.

In Dov's view, this is not just a Crypto issue, nor is it just a Chinese VC issue, but a global market undergoing a round of comprehensive value reassessment: U.S. stock IPOs breaking on debut, Chinese concept stocks struggling, very few quality companies in the Hong Kong stock market to choose from, VCs losing the qualification to tell stories, and retail investors no longer buying into them.

"Look at the U.S. now, Ant Group didn't IPO, ByteDance didn't IPO, U.S. stock IPOs are almost on par with launching coins, with most companies going bust. Look at NIO, Missfresh, Perfect Diary, aren't the trends of these stocks similar to meme coins? Even in the traditional primary market, it's all bubbles everywhere."

These two cycles in Crypto are, in many ways, akin to the previous consumer capital bubble in China: "Back then, all brands used the same OEM factory, slapped on a label, changed the packaging, and dared to tell a new story. Many projects in the crypto world are doing the same now."

Current projects are now being benchmarked on who can tell the best story, attract the most active community, leverage the strongest topic volume, and grab attention on Twitter.

Thus, Agency has been "chosen."

Blurred Boundaries

Er Gou observed the industry changes in this cycle: "Almost every market cycle sees a wave of marketing teams, incubators, or accelerators popping up, but most are short-lived. When a new cycle arrives, it's a whole new set of faces."

He recalled the "grassroots" growth period in the industry in early 2021: "Back then, everyone was doing things in a scattered manner, far from being systematic." But now, as competition intensifies, the top-tier Agencies have begun to adopt a dual "reorganization" trend of organizational structure and cognitive capabilities, truly beginning to operate like a lightweight Crypto VC.

Currently, in the industry, there are two mainstream types of top-tier Agency models.

The team represented by JE Labs tends to adopt a "consultancy-style" architecture—where each project is managed by a "project manager" responsible for everything from initial strategy to final execution, providing end-to-end services.

At JE Labs, project managers are not only responsible for KOL selection, content review, deployment scheduling, and data tracking but also specialize in segmentation by sector (DeFi, AI, Infra, etc.), gradually accumulating cognitive and operational capabilities in sub-categories. Language segmentation is also included in the refined management dimension: the team respectively holds KOL and media resources in Chinese, English, and Russian-speaking regions, accurately matching regional communication habits and public opinion rhythms.

Another type of representation is the "collaborative division of labor" Agency represented by BLOCKFOCUS and Hyperion. These teams slice the entire marketing process into multiple modules, each completed by different members. For example, BD colleagues engage with clients in the early stages to drive collaboration; project controllers grasp the overall project rhythm, node feedback, and resource coordination; KOL operations manage the KOL resource pool and coordinate deployment rhythms; content and data colleagues write content, review data, and adjust optimizations. This split-operational style is more suitable for handling multiple projects simultaneously, making it easier to create SOP processes and achieve scalable service replication.

Whether it's a project manager model or a multi-disciplinary collaboration model, top-tier agencies are no longer just "intermediaries." They are gradually evolving into lightweight VCs — they need to understand both marketing and the project itself, and even grasp investment and financing strategies.

Top-tier Agencies, Focusing on Three Key Areas Only

The composite capabilities of "consulting + media + investment + strategy" have transformed such agencies into more lightweight VCs with a more stable cash flow.

The core competitiveness and moat that these top-tier agencies possess have shifted from "who knows more KOLs" to three other key areas: selecting better projects, crafting better narratives, and planning exits effectively.

Selecting Quality Projects

Look at whether the support group behind the project is native enough; the founding team's background, historical integrity record, resource vision, execution ability, etc.

The criteria that top-tier agencies use to select projects are actually not much different from an investor's approach to building a portfolio.

If every collaboration yields results, then every time KOLs collaborate with the agency, they make money, and retail investors following these KOLs can also profit. The market's level of attention, trust, and buying interest in this agency will be different.

Therefore, BLOCKFOCUS founder Doge has rejected many project partnerships: "Taking on more cases can indeed increase revenue, but it also means more management costs, training costs. If brand integrity is compromised for quantity, it would not be worth it. The trust mechanism is especially important."

When an agency consistently delivers multiple successful cases and receives high praise from clients, it enters a virtuous cycle: more high-quality projects come knocking, word-of-mouth strengthens brand stickiness, better clients are filtered out, leading to more successful cases. At the same time, old clients may make repeat purchases, forming long-term partnerships.

Selling "Narratives," Delivering "Execution"

If a16z is the epitome of creating "VC-level" influence through narrative construction, today's top-tier agencies are replicating this capability.

During the project's cold start phase, users may not even understand what the project is about — at this point, what really matters is not the technical manual, but a clear, compelling narrative.

What a top-tier Agency needs to do is to take complex and difficult-to-understand technology and products and explain them in a single sentence that retail investors can understand, enjoy listening to, and be willing to follow.

Mango Labs' COO Gary once gave an illustrative analogy: "An Agency is like house design and construction. 20 years ago, everyone bought construction and got design for free; but now, it's buying design and getting construction for free."

"KOL Services" are the construction, while "narrative, rhythm and content control, and crisis management" are the "house design."

An excellent Agency is no longer just about "finding a few KOLs to promote," but truly engages in early-stage project strategy planning: from narrative development, budget allocation, to KOL selection, dissemination rhythm, and the expression of the economic model, each aspect requires "deep customization."

JE Labs Founder Evie detailed her finely layered approach to KOL resources to BlockBeats, with each category having a clear position and evaluation criteria:

1. Brand KOLs: These KOLs are usually researchers, senior media personalities, or content creators who have a deep reputation in the industry. They may not have the most followers, but they have a strong influence and excel at helping projects establish long-term narratives and brand endorsements.

2. Traffic KOLs: Represented by airdrop hunters. These KOLs have a strong community mobilization power and can quickly gather users to participate in project activities. The Agency tracks their conversion effects through Ref links, with precise data quantification.

3. Trading KOLs: Mainly lead single bloggers who typically have a strong community or trading group that can directly impact token prices or on-chain transaction volume. Some of the KOLs JE Labs cooperates with can bring in monthly trading volumes exceeding tens of millions of dollars. These KOLs generally bind commission bots to evaluate contribution value directly through data.

Within Mango Labs, one of Joyce's tasks is to maintain the KOL List. She recalled her initial state when she joined: "At that time, I was just an ordinary user, and I watched content based solely on personal preferences, not really understanding what influence meant."

However, after doing this job, she truly realized: "What kind of KOL can truly influence readers' perception? What content is considered valuable in the eyes of the project team? These are completely two different sets of standards."

An account with obvious high volume may also have genuine interaction; while some small accounts with abstract content may profoundly influence a core group of a track. And some people have built strong trust in their practical skills solely by sharing live trading records every day. "So, you can't judge based on the number of followers; instead, you have to assess based on compatibility."

Therefore, in addition to traditional marketing, some agencies will creatively plan some "scripted battles" to precisely control the public opinion tempo, rapidly expanding the project's visibility through hot events. For example, Hyperion is very good at building hype from an "entertainment narrative" perspective.

Founder Miko said, "We are essentially traditional marketers. For us, Web3 is just another content platform. We want to redo what has been done in Web2 in Web3."

Their approach is very much in line with traditional "entertainment industry attributes": project collaborations, drama, scripted scenarios, KOL power struggles, and even FUD scenarios. Through these personalized marketing strategies, they bring more visibility to projects.

"You can't just put out a list and have everyone post at the same time," Miko explained. "You have to design each person's entry sequence, way of speaking, and tempo like a director, somewhat like choreographing a multi-person dialogue drama. The communication needs to be dramatic to be memorable."

In his view, these antics are another form of demonstrating execution power and communication tension. Their choice of KOLs is not limited to just "traffic influencers." They also work with many developers, investors, DAO organizations, and other Web3 KOLs, allowing project promotions to be approached from multiple angles.