Highlights of this Issue
According to PANews incomplete statistics, there were 30 blockchain investment and financing events globally last week (2.26-3.3), with a total fund size exceeding $150 million, as follows:
- DeFi announced 6 investment and financing events, including the liquidity re-collateralization protocol Ether.Fi completing a $23 million Series A financing, led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund;
- NFT and Metaverse field announced 1 investment and financing event: NFT project Imaginary Ones completed a new round of financing, with participation from Animoca Brands, among others;
- Chain Games track announced 2 investment and financing events, including the chain game infrastructure startup READYgg announcing the completion of a $4 million new round of financing, with participation from Delphi Digital, among others;
- Infrastructure and Tools track announced 13 financings, including the Ethereum expansion project Taiko completing a $15 million Series A financing, with participation from Hashed, among others;
- Other Web3/Encryption-related projects announced 7 financings, including blockchain data analysis company Octav announcing a $4 million strategic investment;
- Centralized Finance field announced 1 investment and financing event: the cryptocurrency exchange Backpack completed a $17 million Series A financing with a valuation of $120 million.
DeFi
The liquidity re-collateralization protocol Ether.Fi raised $23 million in a Series A financing led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund, with participation from companies such as OKX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Consensys, and Amber. Ether.Fi's Total Value Locked (TVL) has grown from $103 million at the beginning of this year to $1.66 billion. The TVL of the entire liquidity re-collateralization ecosystem has exceeded $10 billion. Ether.Fi allows Ethereum stakers to re-collateralize Ether through EigenLayer in exchange for the liquidity token eETH, which can be used in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market.
The Bitcoin collateralization chain BounceBit completed a $6 million seed round financing, led by Blockchain Capital and Breyer Capital, with participation from dao5, CMS Holdings, Bankless Ventures, NGC Ventures, Matrixport Ventures, DeFiance Capital, OKX Ventures, and HTX Ventures, among others. Individual investors include Calvin Liu, Chief Strategy Officer of EigenLayer. The structure of this round of financing is a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) with token warrants, but the valuation was not disclosed. BounceBit is a sister company of the token launch platform Bounce Finance, established in December last year. BounceBit is a Bitcoin re-collateralization protocol currently in early access mode. The company claims to have locked in over $545 million in total value since the launch of the early access on January 23. Jack Lu, Founder and CEO of BounceBit, stated that BounceBit will build a large amount of infrastructure and explore various use cases for Bitcoin re-collateralization.
Sui ecosystem lending protocol Scallop completes $3 million financing, led by THE CMS and 6MV
The Sui ecosystem lending protocol Scallop completed a $3 million financing, led by THE CMS and 6MV, with participation from KuCoin Labs, 7UpDAO, Side Door Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures, Signum Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, Cypher Capital Group, Mysten Labs, and Kyros Ventures, among others. Earlier news indicated that the Sui ecosystem lending protocol Scallop's flash loan total exceeded $200 million, and the cumulative historical lending volume (lending + borrowing) has exceeded $5 billion. Scallop is the second largest project by market value on Sui and the largest lending market, emphasizing security and composability, and providing zero-fee flash loans. Scallop is the first DeFi protocol officially funded by the Sui Foundation, and is the second largest project by market value on Sui, emphasizing security and composability, and providing zero-fee flash loans.
Ring Protocol announced the completion of a pre-seed round financing, with participants including Manifold Trading, Continue Capital, Synergiscap, mox Capital, CL207, DefiSquared, and Bored Chili. Ring Protocol is the winning project in the Layer2 network Blast ecosystem application competition BIG BANG, and its Ring Swap allows liquidity providers to earn swap fees and income by pledging underlying assets and/or RWA.
Pantera Capital announces investment in decentralized lending protocol Morpho Labs
Pantera Capital announced its investment in the decentralized lending protocol Morpho Labs, with the specific amount undisclosed. Pantera Capital stated that it believes Morpho represents the next stage of evolution for lending platforms. Morpho has developed a more robust, user-controlled risk assessment platform and introduced a unique lending pool pairing system, effectively narrowing the spread between borrowers and lenders, and allowing users to choose risk assessors. Earlier in July 2022, Morpho completed a $18 million financing, led by a16z and Variant.
DEX and liquidity protocol Cetus announces strategic investment from Sui Foundation
Based on Sui and Aptos, the DEX and liquidity protocol Cetus announced strategic investment from the Sui Foundation on the X platform. The specific amount was not disclosed. Earlier in May last year, Cetus completed a seed round of financing, led by OKX Ventures and KuCoin Ventures, with participation from NGC Ventures, Jump Crypto, Animoca Ventures, among others.
NFT
NFT project Imaginary Ones completes new round of financing, with participation from Animoca Brands
NFT project Imaginary Ones announced the completion of a new round of financing, with participation from Cypher Capital Group, Animoca Brands, MH Ventures, Illuminati Capital, Andromeda Capital, among others. Imaginary Ones stated that with this round of financing, they will accelerate efforts to become a leading WEB3 entertainment group, focusing on games, content, and merchandise.
Chain Games
Chain game infrastructure startup READYgg announced the completion of a $4 million new round of financing, with participation from Delphi Digital, NeoTokyo, Merit Circle, Momentum6, Purechain Capital, Alex Becker, and Token Metrics Ventures, but the valuation information for this round of financing was not disclosed. READYgg primarily helps developers implement NFTs, crypto wallets, and other Web3 technology tools in games, while advocating for community-centered games that empower players. Additionally, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden announced his joining of the company, and it is reported that Shawn Layden has also served as an advisor at the tech giant Tencent.
PlayMakers completes $1.5 million Pre-Seed financing, led by RockawayX
PlayMakers, a startup focusing on Web3 game user-generated content, announced the completion of a $1.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by RockawayX, and also received participation from angel investors such as Sébastien Borget, Vincent Hart de Keating, and Hugues Ouvard. This funding will be used to enhance PlayMakers' toolset and expand its team.
Infrastructure & Tools
Modular blockchain Avail announced the completion of a $27 million seed round financing, led by venture capital firms Founders Fund and Dragonfly, with participation from SevenX Ventures, Nomad Capital, Figment Capital, as well as individuals such as Balaji Srinivasan from Coinbase, Mudit Gupta, Amrit Kumar from Zilliqa, and Ashwin from Dragonfly. Avail was spun out from Polygon in March 2023, led by Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun, and will use the seed round financing to develop three core products: its Data Availability solution (DA), Nexus, and Fusion.
Avail DA is the first core component, providing data space for "Layer2 networks" or "rollups" to process transactions faster and cheaper than underlying blockchains like Ethereum. The new DA project is expected to be operational in the early second quarter of 2024. Avail Nexus is a "zero-knowledge, credential-based Avail DA-coordinated rollup," which means it will operate as an infrastructure layer, connecting different rollups within the Avail ecosystem for mutual communication. It will "act as a verification center, unifying a wide collection inside and outside the Avail ecosystem, using Avail DA as the root of trust." The "Fusion Security" project will contribute to the security of the Avail ecosystem using encrypted assets such as BTC and ETH. The first iteration of Nexus is expected to go live in 2024, while Fusion Security will be ready by 2025.
Ethereum scaling project Taiko completes $15 million Series A financing
The Ethereum scaling project Taiko completed a $15 million Series A financing, led by Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures, and Token Bay Capital, with participation from Wintermute Ventures, Presto Labs, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures, GSR, WW Ventures, among others. Taiko has raised a total of $37 million through three rounds of financing. Taiko is a decentralized Type-1 ZK-EVM, and plans to launch its mainnet by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Arbitrum's DePIN dedicated chain MXC has completed a $10 million financing led by JDI
MXC announced strategic investment from JDI Ventures, a DePIN investment fund under JDI Global, with an investment amount of $10 million. Since its establishment in Berlin, Germany in 2017, MXC has been focused on developing the decentralized Internet of Things space and has launched the first Layer3 zkEVM solution on Arbitrum. The technology team is led by former core members of zkSync, aiming to become the DePIN infrastructure in the Ethereum ecosystem. JDI Global will provide support in funding, hardware development, and market influence to accelerate the construction of the DePIN ecosystem.
- Former Terra and Cosmos developers successfully raised $7.5 million for the development of the blockchain platform Initia, focusing on Rollup, and plan to launch the mainnet in the second quarter. This round of financing was jointly led by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC, with Nascent, Figment Capital, Big Brain, and A.Capital participating. Angel investors include anonymous cryptocurrency trader Cobie, DCF God, Split Capital co-founder Zaheer Ebtikar, Fiskantes, and WSB Mod. Nick White, Chief Operating Officer of Celestia, also participated. Initia aims to support multiple Layer 2 networks and has incentive mechanisms to promote the growth of these networks. The platform is currently in the closed testnet phase, with some projects building DeFi applications on the testnet and planning to launch the incentive testnet in early April.
Switzerland-based Web3 data stream and infrastructure company Validation Cloud announced the completion of its first external financing round, totaling $5.8 million, led by Cadenza Ventures of San Francisco. This oversubscribed financing round also attracted participation from globally renowned enterprises including Blockchain Founders Fund, Bloccelerate, Blockwall, Side Door Ventures, Metamatic, GS Futures, and AP Capital. Validation Cloud is hailed as the "Cloudflare of Web3" and has built a proprietary system architecture, providing a fast, scalable, and intelligent global platform supporting Staking, node APIs, and data services.
DePIN project Geodnet completes $3.5 million financing, led by North Island Ventures
DePIN project Geodnet announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing round, led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Modular Capital and Road Capital, with the funds intended for establishing what is claimed to be the world's largest real-time kinematic network.
According to the introduction, Geodnet is a community-based decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). Anyone can contribute to the network by installing and operating a reference station called a satellite miner. Standard GPS typically has an error of two meters, however, devices connected to the global RTK network of Geodnet can achieve real-time accuracy within 1-2 centimeters.
The AI-focused decentralized blockchain platform Talus Network completed a $3 million first round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from dao5, Hash3, TRGC, WAGMI Ventures, and Inception Capital. In addition, angel investors from major technology and blockchain companies such as Nvidia, IBM, Blue7, Symbolic Capital, and Render Network also contributed to support the team's mission to democratize artificial intelligence on the blockchain. Talus Network is an innovative blockchain platform focused on decentralized artificial intelligence. The network leverages the powerful capabilities of Move, emphasizing security, speed, and enhanced developer experience. By nurturing a diverse ecosystem of intelligent agents for decentralized applications, Talus Network aims to empower users in a fair and accessible manner through technology.
zk-native blockchain protocol QED completes $3 million financing, led by Arrington Capital
zk-native blockchain protocol QED announced the raising of $3 million in a financing round led by Arrington Capital, with participation from Starkware, Draper Dragon, Blockchain Builders Fund, Lbk Labs, Paper Ventures, Valhalla Capital, Edessa Capital, and Anagram Ltd. QED aims to combine the scalability of zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs with the liquidity and security of Bitcoin (BTC). QED is the native execution layer for Bitcoin, designed to address the challenges of Web3 development. This horizontally scalable, secure, and user-friendly platform is built specifically for developers and users, supporting a wide range of applications from DeFi to NFTs.
BuildBear Labs, focused on Web3 development tools, completes $1.9 million financing, led by 1kx
Singapore-based BuildBear Labs, focused on Web3 development tools, has successfully raised $1.9 million. This round of financing was led by Superscrypt, Tribe Capital, and 1kx, with participation from Iterative, Plug-N-Play, and angel investors including Kris Kaczor and Ken Fromm, founders of Typechain and DethCrypto. BuildBear Labs plans to use this funding to accelerate the development of its flagship platform, which provides testing and verification solutions for developers to create secure decentralized applications.
Fully homomorphic encryption privacy protection technology developer Fair Math announced the completion of a $1.4 million Pre-seed round of financing, led by gumi Cryptos Capital, Inception Capital, and Polymorphic Capital. Fair Math focuses on developing privacy protection technology based on fully homomorphic encryption, with the core goal of significantly simplifying the development of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) applications through the establishment of a developer community and tools, and promoting the adoption of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Fair Math has collaborated with the OpenFHE team to develop the fully automated FHE challenge platform FHERMA, which uses FHE challenges and competition-based methods as the core mechanism to solve challenging practical problems and establish and organize an FHE component library for application developers.
Hedge fund Gotbit Hedge Fund announces million-dollar investment in L1 blockchain 5ireChain
Hedge fund Gotbit Hedge Fund announced on the X platform that it has completed a million-dollar investment in the Layer1 blockchain 5ireChain. 5ireChain will use this round of financing to deepen ecosystem innovation.
Delphinus Lab announces new round of funding with investors including HashKey
Provider of trustless computing platform Delphinus Lab announced on the X platform that it has received further support from prominent investors, including OKX Ventures, Generative Ventures, Seven X Ventures, HashKey Investment Fund, and Bas1s Ventures, to build a trusted computing and application SDK solution based on the ZKWasm virtual machine.
Cycle Network, a full-chain ledger protocol, completes million-dollar financing round with Vertex Ventures as the lead investor
Full-chain ledger protocol Cycle Network announced the completion of its first round of financing totaling "millions of dollars," with the specific amount not disclosed. Vertex Ventures and Summer Ventures, both under Temasek Holdings, led the investment, with participation from LTP, Super Chain Capital, and GSG Digital. Cycle Network has introduced a solution to address interoperability issues in the blockchain space, using its innovative Off-Chain Distributed Ledger Technology (ODLT) to introduce a trustless interaction method for blockchain, solving the fragmentation problem in blockchain networks.
Others
Karma3 Labs completes $4.5 million financing, led by Galaxy and IDEO CoLab Ventures
The development team of the decentralized reputation protocol OpenRank, Karma3 Labs, has completed a $4.5 million financing round. This round of financing was led by Galaxy and IDEO CoLab Ventures. Other investors include Spartan, SevenX, HashKey, Flybridge, Delta Fund, Draper Dragon, and Compa Capital. The funds will be used to increase the adoption of OpenRank and help launch the initial version of the protocol for developers. The OpenRank protocol allows any developer to rate, rank, or recommend applications or communities using its "reputation graph."
Silence Laboratories, a Web3 network security company, completes $4.1 million financing, co-led by Pi Ventures and Kira Studio
Web3 network security company Silence Laboratories has completed a $4.1 million financing round, co-led by Pi Ventures and Kira Studio, with participation from angel investors. The startup will use this funding to expand its team and strengthen its research and development. Silence Laboratories builds infrastructure using multi-party computation (MPC) to help enterprises protect data privacy and security.
Blockchain data analytics company Octav completes $4 million strategic financing
Blockchain data analytics company Octav announced that it has secured $4 million in strategic investment, led by high-net-worth individuals in the crypto asset space. The company focuses on unlocking the potential of on-chain data using machine learning technology to improve the accuracy of data labeling and classification. Through its collaborative platform, Octav achieves continuous optimization of data. The company has served high-end clients such as Gelato, Request Finance, and Alchemix, helping them efficiently manage financial data. Octav CEO Mathieu Baril stated that the company plans to advance decentralization after open-sourcing machine learning models and data. Currently, the company has 14 employees and plans to expand its market and sales team.
Tokenized asset issuance company Open Asset announced the completion of a 2.3 billion Korean won (approximately $1.73 million) seed round financing, with participation from Hana Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, and Mashup Ventures, among others. Open Asset aims to enable financial institutions to adopt blockchain and trade tokenized assets. The company has been involved in the development of distributed ledger systems and smart contracts for tokenized securities under the project of the Korea Investment Securities. Additionally, Open Asset was selected in the second round of Web3 social ecosystem grants by Mask Network last year.
CredShields, a blockchain security solution, completes $1 million strategic round financing, with participation from Draper Associates
Blockchain security solution CredShields announced the completion of a $1 million strategic round financing, with participation from Draper Associates. The company's total financing to date has reached $1.8 million. CredShields primarily provides Web3 security services, offering solutions to protect digital assets and ensure the integrity of blockchain-based transactions. The new funds will be used to drive the accelerated development of automated and simplified smart contract auditing tool SolidityScan.
Humanity Protocol announces strategic investment from over 20 institutions including Hashed
Humanity Protocol announced strategic investment from over 20 prominent native crypto venture capital funds, including Hashed, CMCC, Cypher Capital, Foresight Ventures, and Mechanism Capital, among others. Additionally, individual investments were made by Animoca Brand founder Yat Siu and Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal. The specific amount was not disclosed. Humanity Protocol utilizes palm recognition technology and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure user privacy and security, aiming to provide an easily accessible and non-intrusive method for establishing human proof in Web3 applications.
LinkTo, a Web3 traffic aggregation marketing platform, completes seed round financing with participation from Adaverse and other institutions
Web3 traffic aggregation marketing platform LinkTo announced the successful completion of its seed round financing, with investment from Adaverse, Ruby Capital, Warrior Wealth Fund, BitValue Capital, and Block Infinity Limited. LinkTo is dedicated to addressing core challenges in advertising and marketing in the current Web3 ecosystem, including improving advertising efficiency, ensuring marketing transparency, and optimizing user engagement. By introducing advanced traffic injection technology and AI algorithms, LinkTo aims to provide a platform for brands and advertisers to accurately target and effectively reach their desired audience while ensuring data security and user privacy.
Centralized Finance
Former FTX and Alameda Research employees raised $17 million to expand their cryptocurrency exchange Backpack, which is currently valued at $120 million. Based in Dubai, Backpack offers not only exchange services but also cryptocurrency wallets and NFT collections. This round of financing was led by crypto venture capital firm Placeholder VC, with participation from Wintermute, Robot Ventures, Selini Capital, Amber Group, and others. Backpack plans to enter selected U.S. markets, and currently has over 420,000 verified users globally.
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