Highlights of this Issue
According to PANews incomplete statistics, there were 35 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide last week (1.22-1.28), with a total fund size exceeding $210 million, as follows:
DeFi announced 6 investment and financing events, including the on-chain financial platform VETA Finance completing a $2.85 million strategic financing, led by Matrixport Ventures.
NFT and Metaverse field announced 3 investment and financing events, including NFT cross-chain lending protocol Singular completing a $3 million seed round of financing, led by IOBC Capital.
Chain Games track announced 5 investment and financing events, including Web3 game monetization platform 3thix completing an $8.5 million financing.
Infrastructure and Tools track announced 12 financings, including Ethereum Layer 2 development company Polymer Labs raising $23 million in Series A financing, led by Blockchain Capital.
Other Web3/Encryption-related projects announced 5 financings, including Farcaster's ecological project Wield announcing the completion of over $1 million in Pre-Seed round of financing on the X platform, led by Lemniscap.
In the field of Centralized Finance, there were 4 investment and financing events, including cryptocurrency bank Sygnum completing over $40 million in financing at a valuation of $900 million.
DeFi
Digital asset platform Web3Intelligence raised $4.5 million before the launch of a new token
The developer of the Web3 investment application Dopamine, Web3Intelligence, has raised $4.5 million before the launch of the new token DOPE. This round of private financing includes participation from investors such as DAO MAKER, Shima Capital, and Gate.io. DOPE will serve as a utility token for accessing the gamified experience of decentralized finance (DeFi) investments through Dopamine. The token is planned to be listed on popular centralized and decentralized exchanges in the first quarter.
Web3Intelligence aims to provide AML information to institutions, allowing their clients to be confident that they meet the compliance standards expected by traditional finance. Institutions holding DOPE will also have access to Web3Intelligence's anti-money laundering (AML) infrastructure, which scores the compliance of Web3 wallets and then encapsulates them on-chain in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
On-chain financial platform VETA Finance completes $2.85 million strategic financing
On-chain financial platform VETA Finance announced the completion of a $2.85 million strategic financing on its official blog, led by Matrixport Ventures, the venture capital department of Matrixport, with participation from imToken Ventures, WT Capital, Future Money Group, and 280 Capital. VETA Finance focuses on digital asset structured products, including full-service chains for decentralized finance platforms, structured product quotations, and the operation of channels such as exchanges.
Synonym completes $1.5 million seed round financing, led by Borderless Capital
Cross-chain lending protocol Synonym announced the completion of a $1.5 million seed round financing, led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Robot Venture, Big Brain Holdings, and the Wormhole Cross-Chain Ecological Fund. The new funds will be used for Synonym to expand into new ecosystems and provide encrypted asset cross-chain lending services for DeFi professionals.
DeFi perpetual protocol aggregator Cadence Protocol completes seed round financing, with participation from CSP DAO
DeFi perpetual protocol aggregator Cadence Protocol announced the completion of seed round financing, with strategic angel investors including Dewhales Capital, CSP DAO, FourMoons Investment Group, Scott Lewis, founder of Code4Arena/Canto/Slingshot, Stephan Tong, co-founder of Zellic, and Ryon Nixon of Marin Ventures. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. The new financing will be used to launch perpetual protocols on the Canto chain, improving capital efficiency through the integration of RWA, Contractual Revenue Assurance (CSR), and Liquidity Staking Derivatives (LSD).
bitSmiley completes first round token financing, led by OKX Ventures and ABCDE
Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem project bitSmiley completed its first round of token financing, led by OKX Ventures and ABCDE, with participation from CMS Holdings, Foresight Ventures, LK Venture, Silvermine Capital, and relevant individuals from Delphi Digital and Particle Network. bitSmiley will launch a new DeFi scripture protocol called bitRC-20, with the first asset being OG PASS NFT, also known as bitDisc. bitDisc is divided into two levels, gold and black cards, with the gold card being allocated to Bitcoin OGs and industry leaders, currently totaling less than 40 holders. Starting from February 4th, the black card will be open to the public through whitelist and public minting activities.
Cooperative life insurance DAO service provider Takadao completes strategic round financing, with participation from Cardano ecosystem fund Adaverse
Cooperative life insurance DAO service provider Takadao announced the completion of a strategic round of financing, with participation from Cardano ecosystem accelerator and seed fund Adaverse. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. Takadao's cooperative life insurance DAO "Takasure" enables decentralized savings and profit generation, allowing for the redistribution of profits among members. By utilizing blockchain technology, financial solutions can improve transparency and reduce costs.
NFT & Metaverse
The first NFT cross-chain lending protocol supporting the BTC ecosystem, Singular, announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing, led by IOBC Capital, with follow-on investments from the BCH Foundation, Bing Ventures, DG Capital, and Divide Labs. In addition, to further enhance user rights, Singular will soon issue the first full-chain PFP project with token attributes—Golden Chipmunk, which can achieve real-time cross-chain transfers on BTC, ETH, and Layer2, allowing NFTs to break free from reliance on the chain itself and gain better liquidity. As a token of Singular, it not only brings exclusive identity to users but also entitles them to protocol fee discounts, future airdrops, and other benefits.
According to reports, Singular is the first NFT lending protocol that supports cross-chain transactions in multiple ecosystems such as BTC, ETH, and Arbitrum. It is also the only real-time lending protocol that supports BTC ecosystem Ordinals NFT. Singular has already achieved support for the liquidity of various NFT assets, including Bitcion Frog, and has gained a leading position in the ETH ecosystem, Arbitrum, and other Layer2 ecosystems. Singular is committed to becoming the best lending protocol supporting all categories and all-chain assets. Through the innovative "dynamic risk-interest matching model," it dynamically matches risk and returns, providing the best liquidity solutions for various NFT assets, including PFP, Gaming, and RWA.
NFT data platform BitsCrunch completes $2.4 million financing, led by Cypher Capital
Decentralized NFT data platform BitsCrunch announced the completion of a $2.4 million financing, led by Cypher Capital. The financing also received support from institutions such as Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, Chainlink, Crypto.com Capital, Morningstar Ventures, and Shima Capital. BitsCrunch is an AI-based decentralized NFT data platform that enables developers to build reliable NFT applications (dApps) and provides data analysis services for NFTs and multi-chain digital assets. The company is actively developing encrypted data forensics business to help retail, institutional, and venture investors make better decisions about cryptocurrency investments. This financing will strengthen BitsCrunch's development in the NFT and encrypted data fields.
Encrypted AI platform imgnAI completes $1.6 million seed round financing, led by Hack VC
The encrypted AI platform imgnAI announced the completion of a $1.6 million seed financing led by Hack VC, with participation from Rana Capital, Selini Capital, West Ham Capital, Motus Capital, and dao5, but the specific valuation was not disclosed. The company's image generation robot platform was launched at the end of 2022, and its imgnAI encrypted tokens on the website are used to unlock advanced features and directly mint images as NFTs. Tokens used for such functions will be subsequently burned, reducing the total supply. The funds will be used to increase imgnAI's infrastructure capacity, accelerate product development, and expand its marketing efforts. The project also plans to use this capital to support the launch of a "digital companion" product called "Naifu," which aims to provide high-performance text and image responses, offering greater creative freedom compared to web2 alternatives.
Chain Games
Web3 game monetization platform 3thix completes $8.5 million financing
Web3 game monetization platform 3thix completed an $8.5 million financing, with participation from Hand of Midas, the family office of Shurick Agapitov, founder of video game business company Xsolla, and Sonic Boom Ventures, the family office of Steve Kokinos, co-founder and former CEO of Algorand. 3thix is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and aims to reshape the game monetization landscape by integrating Web3 infrastructure and addressing privacy, user experience, and sustainable growth issues. One of 3thix's key innovations is the implementation of a decentralized Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) model to ensure the protection of user data privacy while providing valuable data analysis for developers and advertisers, maximizing monetization potential through innovative in-game transactions to establish a real-world economy.
Arcade2Earn gaming platform completes $4.8 million financing, led by Crypto.com Capital
The Arcade2Earn gaming platform completed a $4.8 million private token financing round, led by Crypto.com Capital, with other investors including Solana Ventures, Shima Capital, KuCoin Labs, and GSR. The co-founder and CEO of Arcade2Earn, Josh Poole, stated that the gaming platform will also conduct a public token sale on February 27, selling 15 million ARC tokens, accounting for 1.875% of the total supply (800 million tokens). In addition, Arcade2Earn has no plans for further public token sales in the near future, and tokens will be distributed through community incentive programs and other methods.
Web3 esports fan engagement platform Stan completed a $2.7 million financing, with participation from Aptos Labs, Pix Capital, Maelstrom Fund, GFR Fund, CoinDCX Ventures, Climber Capital, TDV Partners, and Coinswitch Ventures. Stan helps users purchase collectibles and interact with popular esports personalities (players or KOLs) through chat and audio rooms and its exclusive community on the platform. Some of these collectibles are also Web3 projects, such as NFTs. The company charges a 15% to 20% commission on in-app purchases made by users on the platform.
Bitcoin gamified accelerator 10n8 Little Dragon completes $1.5 million financing
The Bitcoin gamified accelerator 10n8 Little Dragon completed a $1.5 million financing, with participation from Centauri Digital Asset Group, Mirai DAO, New Tribe Capital, 3M Capital, Ivan on Tech, SeedThrift Ventures, Boxmining, Spicy Capital, and Satoshi Stacker. The goal of 10n8 Little Dragon is to accelerate projects in the Asia-Pacific region and introduce them to the English market, allowing users to stake, play games, and earn rewards in different mining pools and games. The project's future roadmap includes the additional Dragon Pool using other DeFi mechanisms and the development of the Dragon Ordinals series and Unity-based metaverse games.
Mon Studios, the developer of the MMORPG game "Spellborne," announced the completion of a $1.35 million strategic financing. Participants in this round of financing include 32-Bit Ventures, Momentum 6, Yunt Capital, D64 Ventures, County Capital, as well as founders and executives of companies such as Animoca Brands, YGG, Faze Clan, Immutable, and Tatsumeeko. The funds will be used for the continued development of the multiplayer online role-playing game "Spellborne."
Infrastructure & Tools
Ethereum Layer 2 developer Polymer Labs completes $23 million Series A financing
Ethereum Layer 2 developer Polymer Labs has raised $23 million in its Series A financing. The round was led by Blockchain Capital, Maven 11, and Distributed Global, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Placeholder, Digital Currency Group, North Island Ventures, and Figment Capital. Polymer Labs is building an Ethereum Layer 2 network to provide interoperability services between Ethereum and its rollups. The company's current team size is approximately 30 people and plans to use the new capital to expand its business, including hiring in business development and engineering. Polymer also intends to launch its mainnet at some point this year, depending on the performance of the testnet. Polymer utilizes the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol and the Optimism Stack to build its interoperability hub. The company aims to initially connect Ethereum and its rollups, and then expand to all blockchains to establish the next generation of the internet.
Innovative company Ingonyama, focused on accelerating and popularizing Zero-Knowledge Proof technology, has completed a $21 million seed round financing, led by IOSG Ventures, Geometry, and Walden Catalyst Ventures. IOSG Ventures is committed to supporting projects with breakthroughs in ZK technology innovation and application development and will establish a long-term partnership with Ingonyama, focusing on broader ZK technology development. Ingonyama is currently focused on enhancing Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) capabilities through its product ICICLE. ICICLE accelerates ZKP computations on GPUs, aiming to make ZKP faster, more accessible, and cost-effective. In the future, Ingonyama plans to continue developing and optimizing ZKP technology, expanding its applications not only in the blockchain field but also covering more industries requiring high privacy and security. It also aims to build a broader developer community to promote the adoption and innovation of ZKP technology.
Axiom completes $20 million Series A financing, led by Paradigm and Standard Crypto
Ethereum historical data protocol Axiom has announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing led by Paradigm and Standard Crypto. Support was also provided by Robot Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Hasu from Flashbots, Sandy from Scroll, Ye and Haichen, Alex from OpenSea, Sreeram and Calvin from EigenLabs, Liam from Optimism / ETH Global, Collin from Obol, Lakshman from Personae, Stephen and Jazzy from Zellic, Brendan and Daniel from Polygon, Zac and Joe from Aztec, among others. This funding will be used to expand the team and accelerate the development of its core Zero-Knowledge (ZK) platform, which aims to empower smart contract developers to build data-rich on-chain applications. Axiom's latest announcement comes after its recent V2 upgrade, which focuses on making the protocol more useful for smart contract developers.
Masa Network completes $5.4 million seed round financing, led by Anagram
Masa Network has successfully raised $5.4 million in seed round funding to establish a decentralized network focused on user personal data on Avalanche. This round of investment was led by Anagram, a venture capital firm co-founded by Lily Liu from Solana Foundation and former Polychain member Joe Eagan. The round also attracted participation from notable investors including Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Digital Currency Group, and GoldenTree. These funds will be used to launch Masa's subnet on Avalanche this year. The custom blockchain is designed to handle a large volume of zero-knowledge encrypted data. This seed round financing brings its total funding to approximately $9 million. Masa's goal is to create a data platform that allows users to contribute personal data and receive rewards in the form of Masa's native tokens. Developers will be able to access this data for training AI models and creating applications while protecting user privacy. To achieve this goal, Masa will use advanced encryption technologies, including zero-knowledge proofs.
Web3 native data lake development company Hyperline completes $5.2 million seed round financing, led by Slow Ventures
Web3 native data lake development company Hyperline has announced the completion of a $5.2 million seed round financing, led by Slow Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons, Script Capital, Canonical Crypto, Picus Capital, Volt Capital, Mischief, and Maelstrom. The company primarily builds shared storage and computing engines for Web3 developers building AI products and analytics applications to support data applications and services.
ZK development company Zorp completes $5 million seed round financing, led by Delphi Ventures
ZK-L1 network Nockchain development company Zorp has announced the completion of a $5 million seed round financing on the X platform, led by Delphi Ventures, with participation from North Island Ventures, CMCC Global, Portal Ventures, Champion Hill Ventures, Breed VC, Octu Ventures, and Labyrinth DAO. Zorp is building Nockchain as a high-throughput chain, providing proofs for computation, storage, and new namespace. Zorp has built a combinator-based virtual machine on Nock, which can be effectively used with zero-knowledge proofs. Nockchain is a proof-of-useful-work blockchain located on its ZKVM.
- Bagel Network has raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed financing round, led by CoinFund. Participants in this round of financing also include Protocol Labs, Borderless Capital, Maven11 Capital, Graph Paper Capital, and Breed VC. Bagel Network plans to address data monopolies by creating a marketplace that allows data scientists and AI engineers to exchange and license verifiable datasets in a cost-effective and privacy-preserving manner. The project aims to develop a decentralized data platform to support machine learning (ML) models. Bagel Network plans to utilize blockchain and zero-knowledge encryption technology to compete with existing Web2 competitors such as HuggingFace, Kaggle, and Pionex, targeting the mainstream machine learning and AI fields.
Web3 security company KEKKAI completes $1.5 million seed round financing
Web3 security company KEKKAI has announced the completion of a $1.5 million seed round financing, with participation from Bixin Ventures, Sora Ventures, Decima Fund, Plug and Play, FlickShot, Mask Network, Stratified Capital, MZ Web3 Fund, Presto Labs, GoPlus Security, and Dora Ventures. Founded in 2023, KEKKAI is a Web3 security company. It currently operates KEKKAI Plugin and KEKKAI Mobile for users and provides KEKKAI Audit and packaged functionalities to enterprise clients through KEKKAI API and SDK services. KEKKAI has members in Japan, China, and Europe, and is actively recruiting new members globally.
B² Network completes seed round financing, with participation from HashKey Capital and OKX Ventures
B² Network has announced the successful completion of seed round financing, with support from notable investors including HashKey Capital, OKX Ventures, IDG, KuCoin Ventures, ABCDE, Waterdrip Capital, OGs Fund, and Antalpha. B² Network is a Bitcoin Rollup Layer-2 solution based on zero-knowledge proof verification. The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), developer-friendly, and supports Bitcoin and Ethereum format account addresses. Additionally, it is the first DA layer for Bitcoin rollups.
Decentralized physical network Meson Network has announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing led by Presto Labs, with a valuation of $1 billion. The specific amount of financing was not disclosed. Meson Network describes itself as focusing on DePIN+AI, with over 100,000 active nodes spanning across 150 countries. Meson aims to build a decentralized physical network authorized by people, with "DePIN" nodes developed using user-friendly technology to accommodate various hardware such as personal laptops, servers, IoT devices, and more. Leveraging the idle bandwidth of these network nodes, Meson has established an economic cycle that connects idle resources with business demands.
LK Venture, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-listed company Lanling Interactive, has announced a strategic investment in the Bitcoin RGB infrastructure BiHelix through the Bitcoin network ecosystem investment management fund BTC NEXT. BiHelix is built on the Bitcoin native blockchain, combining the RGB protocol and the Lightning Network to optimize node infrastructure in the Bitcoin ecosystem, aiming to address the scalability and Turing incompleteness bottlenecks faced by the Bitcoin blockchain. By providing higher privacy protection, throughput, and low-latency transaction processing, it serves various ecosystem participants such as miners, validators, node service providers, exchanges, and users, striving to create a more efficient and scalable Bitcoin ecosystem.
Algorand ecosystem oracle project Gora Network completes strategic round of financing
Algorand Ventures has announced a strategic investment in the Algorand ecosystem oracle project Gora Network, which aims to provide secure, reliable, and authentic offline data for blockchain applications. The new funds will be used to drive Gora's development, including business expansion, infrastructure expansion, product suite expansion, ecosystem cultivation, as well as research and development.
The blockchain project CryptoSafe, which focuses on improving the capital efficiency of the cryptocurrency market, has completed a new round of $20 million financing, with a valuation of $95 million. Several well-known investment funds participated, but the specific investors were not disclosed. The financing round was completed on January 1, 2024. It is reported that the project received $2 million in private investment, and in the first round of financing announced on September 8, 2022, the project was valued at $15 million. This funding received support from risk investment companies including VentureX Capital, NexTech Ventures, and Blockchain Innovation Fund. A significant portion of the original funds was allocated to the development of ecosystem products, such as the CryptoSafe application and the CSvision analytics platform. The CryptoSafe application provides real-time market data, portfolio management, and secure trade execution. The CSvision analytics platform offers advanced charts, algorithm analysis, risk management tools, and customizable dashboards for in-depth market analysis.
The decentralized data platform Bagel Network has completed a $3.1 million pre-seed financing round, led by CoinFund, with participation from Protocol Labs, Borderless Capital, Maven11 Capital, Graph Paper Capital, and Breed VC. Bagel Network plans to address data monopolies by creating a marketplace that allows data scientists and AI engineers to exchange and license verifiable datasets in a cost-effective and privacy-preserving manner.
The digital asset data company CCData announced on its official website that it has received strategic investment from VanEck and MarketVector Index. The specific amount of financing was not disclosed. CCData, founded in 2014, aggregates real-time encrypted data sources from global exchanges, providing comprehensive and accurate digital asset data, reference rates, and indices. Its data solutions have been adopted by traditional financial and digital asset institutions such as MSCI, Pantera, Ripple, BitGo, Metamask, Coinbase, and 21Shares, and have established strategic distribution partnerships with platforms such as Refinitiv and SIX Digital.
The social network DAO Friends With Benefits (FWB) announced that its software development company, Scene Infrastructure Company (SIC, also known as FWB Labs), has completed a $3 million seed round financing, led by a16z crypto. SIC, led by former DAO product lead Jose Mejia from Dapper Labs and Zora co-founder Ethan Daya, is primarily focused on accelerating software development and expanding the utility of the FWB token. FWB is a new type of DAO that requires a written application for membership, reviewed and voted on by the community, and represented by a minimal amount of FWB tokens for ownership within the DAO.
The cryptocurrency bank Sygnum has announced that it has raised over $40 million in a strategic financing round led by Milan asset management company Azimut Holding, with a valuation of $900 million. This funding will enable Sygnum to further build a fully regulated solution to support investor access to this asset class. Sygnum plans to use the new funds to expand the bank into new markets and further develop its regulated products, such as interbank digital asset services.
The blockchain-based securities investment platform Dinari announced the completion of a $10 million seed round financing in Q4 2023, with participation from former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, 500 Global, Alchemy, Version One Ventures, and Sancue Ventures. Dinari, founded in 2021, provides blockchain-supported access to corporate equity through its dShare platform. Due to regulatory reasons, the dShare platform provides access to securities such as Apple or Tesla stocks for users outside the United States based on the Arbitrum network.
The cryptocurrency trading platform EDX Markets, supported by Citadel Securities and Fidelity Digital Assets, is building an exchange in Singapore and plans to expand its business to provide spot and perpetual futures trading after receiving additional funding from investors such as Pantera Capital and Sequoia Capital. The specific amount of funding was not disclosed. EDX has established its own clearinghouse to attract institutional investors and has chosen Anchorage Digital as a custody partner to avoid potential commingling of funds. The company's clients traded over $1.4 billion in nominal trading volume in December last year, and its clearinghouse has cleared over $3.1 billion in trades since its launch in October last year.
The digital asset custody institution BDACS has completed a seed round financing, with participation from Avalanche's Blizzard Fund.
The South Korean digital asset custody institution BDACS has completed a seed round financing, with participation from Avalanche's Blizzard Fund. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. BDACS will provide institutional custody assets for Avalanche, including AVAX and BTC.b, and will provide staking support for Avalanche P-Chain.
Investment Institutions
Paper Ventures Launches $25 Million Blockchain Venture Capital Fund
Paper Ventures has launched a $25 million venture capital fund for blockchain startups. Danish Chaudhry, Oliver Blakey, and Ivailo Jordanov founded Paper Ventures, which promises to leverage its founders' extensive industry experience and network to provide successful resources and connections for portfolio projects.
The fund was raised through traditional hedge funds, family offices, exchanges, founders, and other high-net-worth early participants in the crypto space. The three founders have been involved in this field since as early as 2010, and their investments include Frax Finance, SEI, YGG, Polygon/Matic, Injective, Polkadot, Cosmos, Merit Circle/Beam, Illuvium, Wintermute, Gensyn, and Morpho.
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