Highlights
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 13 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (April 28 - May 4); the total funding exceeded $137 million, with inflow funds decreasing compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi reported 3 investment and financing events, including blockchain financial company Dinari, which completed a $12.7 million Series A financing led by Hack VC and others;
- Web3+AI reported 2 investment and financing events, including Camp Network, which completed a $25 million Series A financing led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital;
- Infrastructure & Tools reported 6 investment and financing events, including privacy blockchain Miden, which completed a $25 million seed round financing, co-led by a16z Crypto, Hack VC, and 1kx;
- Other applications reported 1 investment and financing event, with Web3 entertainment company YOAKE entertainment completing approximately $1.25 million in financing;
- Centralized Finance reported 1 investment and financing event, with blockchain-driven payment startup Next Generation announcing the completion of a $5 million seed round financing.
DeFi
Blockchain financial company Dinari announced the completion of a $12.7 million Series A financing, led by Hack VC and Blockchange Ventures, with participation from VanEck Ventures, F-Prime, and Avalanche Fund. The company's total financing has reached $22.65 million, with a valuation of $40.15 million in 2024. According to Pitchbook data, Dinari's valuation for 2024 is $40.15 million. The current valuation is unclear, but the company stated it has achieved profitability, although it declined to disclose specific figures.
Dinari focuses on providing U.S. stock investment services for overseas investors, issuing tokens that represent ownership of U.S. stocks through blockchain technology. Its API service has been integrated into several fintech platforms, allowing users to purchase tokens corresponding to stocks of companies like Apple. Dinari will directly purchase and hold the corresponding stocks in the U.S. stock market, ensuring 100% asset backing.
Education finance (EduFi) RWA protocol Pencil Finance announced the completion of a $10 million liquidity pool financing supported by Animoca Brands and Open Campus, aimed at supporting Pencil Finance's first on-chain education loans and debt financing for education companies. The funds have been deployed in Pencil Finance's liquidity pool on the Open Campus EDU Chain. Pencil Finance will collaborate with traditional education loan companies to bring education loans from Southeast Asia and the U.S. on-chain, creating a new asset class for on-chain investors. At the same time, Pencil Finance helps reduce interest rates for education loans by providing on-chain earning opportunities for traditional education loan companies.
Stablecoin startup Zar raises $7 million, led by Dragonfly, a16z, and VanEck
Stablecoin project Zar announced the completion of $7 million in financing, with investors including Dragonfly Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, VanEck Ventures, and co-founders of Coinbase and Solana. Zar was founded in 2024 by Brandon Timinsky and Sebastian Scholl, aiming to enable global "corner stores" to support cash exchange for stablecoin transactions. The platform is not yet open but has about 100,000 users waiting to register, with 7,000 stores expressing willingness to cooperate, covering 20 countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Zar plans to officially launch this summer.
AI
Camp Network completes $25 million Series A financing, led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital
Blockchain project Camp Network, focused on AI copyright revenue sharing, announced the completion of $25 million in Series A financing, led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital, with participation from OKX, Lattice, and Paper Ventures, with a valuation of up to $400 million. Camp Network aims to build an on-chain storage and licensing platform for content creators and plans to launch a cryptocurrency this year. Co-founder Murthy stated that as AI companies gradually standardize data usage, blockchain can become an important tool for verifying copyright compliance.
Decentralized AI project Gata announced the completion of $4 million in seed round financing. This round was led by YZi Labs, IDG Blockchain, Maelstrom Fund, Manifold Trading, Gate Ventures, Formless Capital, Anti Capital, MH Ventures, V3V Ventures, 071 Labs, and Echo. Gata focuses on developing decentralized large model inference, training, and data technology, enabling participation in decentralized infrastructure and supporting the global AI economy. Gata has launched the DataAgent platform, which utilizes computing power resources contributed by global users to automatically generate the data needed for AI training, aiming to replace traditional manual data labeling methods.
Infrastructure & Tools
The privacy blockchain project Miden, co-founded by former Meta engineers, announced the completion of $25 million in seed round financing, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz's crypto division, Hack VC, and 1kx, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, and several angel investors in the crypto field. Polygon Labs did not invest directly but incubated Miden and reached an agreement to allocate about 10% of Miden's future token issuance to Polygon token holders. Miden focuses on achieving transaction privacy through zero-knowledge proofs while balancing blockchain performance and decentralization.
Parallel MPC network Ika announced that it has received strategic investment from the Sui Foundation. To date, Ika has secured over $21 million in financing, with a maximum valuation of $600 million in the private placement phase, and has received support from dozens of institutions in the Web3 field, including the Sui Foundation, DCG, Big Brain Holdings, Blockchange, Node Capital, Amplify Partners, Liquid2 Ventures, and FalconX. Ika is a parallel MPC (multi-party computation) network that will soon launch on the Sui blockchain.
Hong Kong Web3 startup Terminal 3 completes $8 million seed round financing, co-led by Illuminate Financial and CMCC Titan Fund
Hong Kong Web3 startup Terminal 3 has completed $8 million in seed round financing, co-led by Illuminate Financial and CMCC Titan Fund, with participation from Animoca Brands, Progression Fund, IDG Blockchain, Cherubic Ventures, 500 Global, Consensys Mesh, Hard Yaka, and BlackPine. The decentralized identity and data privacy protocol developed by the company has served over 8 million users, and the new funds will be used to launch enterprise-level solutions by the end of the year. Terminal 3 co-founder and CEO Gary Liu stated that its platform combines blockchain and zero-knowledge proof technology to provide secure data storage solutions for scenarios such as banking, government credentials, and AI agents. Investor Illuminate Financial pointed out that verifiable digital identity is a key infrastructure for driving institutional adoption of crypto assets.
Decentralized high-precision map protocol ROVR Network completes $2.6 million seed round financing
Decentralized high-precision map protocol ROVR Network has completed $2.6 million in seed round financing, co-led by Borderless Capital and GEODNET, with participation from IoTeX and other institutions. The project combines LiDAR laser radar and real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning technology to provide open-source map data solutions with centimeter-level accuracy for the autonomous driving industry. ROVR founder Guang Ling stated that the funds will be used for global hardware deployment and community data collection. The project has also launched the issuance of its native token ROVR, which is based on the Solana chain and adopts a deflationary model—data sales revenue will automatically trigger a token burn mechanism. ROVR and GEODNET will establish a joint office in Silicon Valley to integrate their technological resources in spatial positioning and 3D modeling.
Web3 infrastructure project aZen announced the completion of $1.2 million in seed round financing, led by Waterdrip Capital, with participation from DWF Ventures, Rootz Labs, Mindfulness Capital, Attention Ventures, Quantum Leap Lab, and others. Additionally, aZen Holdings has received a $40 million equity investment from UAE's Royal Front LLC to promote long-term expansion and ecosystem development. The new funds will support its construction of decentralized AI-native computing infrastructure.
Other
Web3 entertainment company YOAKE entertainment completes approximately $1.25 million in financing
Web3 entertainment company YOAKE entertainment announced the completion of 180 million yen (approximately $1.25 million) in financing through private token sales and convertible corporate bonds. This round of financing was led by Next Web Capital, with participation from Bitbank Ventures, Credit Scend, Hakuhodo KEY3, Taisu Ventures, X2Y2, and others. The financing will be used for the development of the next-generation entertainment platform and global IP content production.
YOAKE was established in February 2024, funded by several companies including Twin Planet, Asobi System, W TOKYO, and Y&N Brothers. Board members include renowned producer Yasushi Akimoto and Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe. YOAKE focuses on the blockchainization of entertainment IP and recently announced the launch of the official NFT series for the popular Japanese anime "The Seven Deadly Sins," utilizing the blockchain "Soneium" jointly developed by Sony Group and Startale Group.
Centralized Finance
Blockchain-driven payment company Next Generation completes $5 million seed round financing
Blockchain-driven payment startup Next Generation announced the completion of $5 million in seed round financing, with participation from two companies in Cyprus, one Austrian company, and an international investor consortium. Specific details about the investors have not been disclosed. This round of financing will accelerate the launch of the company's B2B payment ecosystem, which aims to connect traditional finance and digital finance through its proprietary stablecoin pegged to the euro, compliant with MiCA standards.
Venture Capital Fund
Crypto venture capital firm dao5 completes $222 million second-phase fundraise
Crypto venture capital firm dao5 announced the completion of a $222 million second-phase fundraise, primarily from family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The firm was founded in 2022 by former Polychain investment partner and corporate lawyer Tekin Salimi, and its first $125 million fund has been fully invested in projects such as Berachain and Bittensor, with a DPI (distributions to paid-in capital) of 1x. The new fund will focus on institutional applications such as stablecoins and asset tokenization, planning to invest in 15-20 early-stage projects. Salimi has participated in significant crypto project investments such as Avalanche, and the first fund's LP and angel investor George Lambeth will be promoted to general partner.
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