Highlights of this Issue
According to PANews incomplete statistics, there were 28 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide last week (7.1-7.7), with a total fund size exceeding $210 million, as follows:
- DeFi: There were 6 investment and financing events, including the Bitcoin re-collateralization protocol Lombard raising $16 million, led by Polychain Capital.
- Web3 Games: 4 investment and financing events were announced, with the blockchain game Swords and Dungeons completing a $5 million financing, with participation from OKX Ventures.
- DePIN: 3 investment and financing events were announced in this field, including the distributed GPU network Prodia raising $15 million for its AI reasoning solution, led by Dragonfly Capital.
- AI: 4 investment and financing events were announced in this field, including the open-source AI platform Sentient raising $85 million in a seed round led by Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures.
- Infrastructure and Tools: 9 financing events were announced, including the blockchain oracle project RedStone raising $15 million in Series A financing, led by Arrington Capital.
- Other Blockchain/Crypto Applications: 2 financing events were announced, including Monad's ecosystem token and NFT launch platform Monad Pad completing a $945,000 financing.
DeFi
Startup Lombard Raises $16 Million in Financing, Led by Polychain Capital
Startup Lombard has raised $16 million in funding and plans to collaborate with the Bitcoin collateralization protocol Babylon to launch a re-collateralization feature based on Bitcoin. The financing round for Lombard was led by Polychain Capital, with participants including OKX Ventures, BabylonChain, Inc., dao5, Franklin Templeton, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, and Nomad Capital. Lombard will introduce "Liquid Bitcoin" tokens (LBTC) based on Babylon's cross-network security technology, which are tradable deposit certificates that allow users to collateralize Bitcoin to secure other networks while maintaining liquidity. Lombard stated that by introducing LBTC through major ecosystems and DeFi protocols, over $1.3 trillion worth of Bitcoin can be used for lending and trading, providing new capital opportunities and users for Bitcoin holders and the ecosystem and its protocols.
Blockchain FinTech Company FreeBnk Completes $3 Million Financing, Led by Founderheads
Lithuanian blockchain FinTech company FreeBnk has announced the completion of a $3 million financing round, led by Founderheads, with participation from ChaiTech Ventures, LVT Capital, Lavender Capital, and others. The new financing will be used to enhance its user interface and application experience, especially for new users. The company focuses on tokenizing RWA and crypto financial services, with its technology based on multi-party computation (MPC) security to ensure the protection of users' digital assets.
The Blast ecosystem DeFi lending protocol Pac Finance has announced the completion of a million-dollar new financing round, with Manifold and Mapleblock leading the investment, and Polychain holding a stake, along with some angel investors. The new financing will be used for further protocol development, including market expansion, team expansion, operating expenses, product development, and innovation. In addition, with the TGE approaching, Pac Finance is about to release details of the Pac token airdrop. Pac Finance, as a Blast ecosystem DeFi lending protocol, operates on a non-custodial, permissionless basis, with core functions including lending, swap trading, and collateralization.
The Solana ecosystem re-collateralization protocol Solayer has announced the completion of the Builders Round financing, with investors including Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Marinade core contributor Michael Repetny, Solend founder Rooter, Tensor co-founder Richard Wu, crypto KOL "Ansem," Anza Chief Strategy Officer Jed Halfon, Drift Protocol co-founder Cindy Leow, Bonk core contributor Nom, Babylon Chain's Xinshu Dong, Bison Trail co-founder Joseph Lallouz, Switchboard co-founder Chris Hermantis, Rio Network co-founder Alan Curtis, DCF God, wsbmod, Solana founder Adam Jin, Initia co-founder Stan Liu, Blockworks co-founder Michael lppolito, Sershoku, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, and Apeindaily. Solayer is a Solana ecosystem re-collateralization protocol that released the re-collateralization standard on Solana in early June, namely Endogenous-Active Validation Service (AVS).
IoT-based RWA Project Piggycell Completes New Financing Round, with Participation from Internet Computer
The IoT-based RWA project Piggycell has announced the completion of a new financing round, with participation from Internet Computer (ICP), and specific financing amount and valuation information has not been disclosed. After this round of financing, Piggycell will join the ICP Olympus accelerator program. Piggycell is a decentralized platform based on the Korean shared power bank service Piggycell, where users can experience IoT-based "Charge-to-Earn (C2E)" services while charging. It is reported that Piggycell plans to conduct closed beta testing (CBT) of its C2E platform soon and will launch it later this year.
Programmable Derivatives Protocol Plaza Completes Pre-Seed Round Financing, Led by Anagram
The programmable derivatives protocol Plaza Finance has announced the completion of the Pre-Seed round financing, with the specific financing amount undisclosed, led by Anagram, with participation from Interop Ventures, Cosmostation, and others.
Web3 Games
According to the official Twitter account of Swords & Dungeons, Swords and Dungeons has successfully raised $5 million in financing. Support was provided by investors including Mirana Ventures, Qiming VC, OKX Ventures, y2z Ventures, Partners Matrix, Folius Ventures, Mask Network, SNZ Holding, ArkStream, Sky9 Capital, Primal Capital, Bas1s Ventures, and others. This P2E DeFi MMORPG combines the traditional game's PvE, PvP, GvG systems with the P2E game mode and DAO governance concept of the Web3.0 era. Swords and Dungeons will end the second round of testing on July 19 and reward participants with 5 million $GOLD. Participants can choose to convert test deposits into USDT, $SND IDO shares, or NFT discounts. Battle Pass NFTs will go live on July 23.
Blockchain Game Project Cambria Announces Completion of $2.5 Million Seed Round Financing
Blockchain game project Cambria has announced the completion of a $2.5 million seed round financing, led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with participation from 1kx and several angel investors, including Delphi Ventures partner Piers Kicks, Delphi Ventures co-founder Hype Investments founder hype, and others. Cambria aims to create a large-scale multiplayer online game inspired by "RuneScape" with on-chain staking and a "risk equals reward" model. The staked amount in its first mini-game "Cambria: Duel Arena" on the Blast chain has exceeded $88 million.
On-chain Social Gaming Platform MonkeyBit Completes $2 Million Seed Round Financing
On-chain social gaming platform MonkeyBit has announced the completion of a $2 million seed round financing, led by Middle East Web3 Fund 3KBTC Capital, with participation from Hongyi Labs and other funds. MonkeyBit has reached ecosystem cooperation with institutions such as ABCDE Capital, Polygon, OKX, Bitget, Bitlayer, AlienX, Tabi, Foresight Ventures, ABGA Eco Fund, TON Ventures, KINE, and Degame. MonkeyBit is dedicated to providing innovative interactive experiences for GameFi players and creating a new on-chain social entertainment ecosystem. The new funds will be used to further develop decentralized social gaming platforms and game creator tools. Meanwhile, MonkeyBit has launched a global ambassador recruitment program.
Web3 Game Points Platform XOOB Completes $1.6 Million Financing, with Participation from Chromia and Others
XOOB has announced the completion of a $1.6 million financing round, with participation from Chromia, Mines of Dalarnia, Alice, including a $200,000 pre-seed round and $1.4 million in incubation financing in the form of IP. XOOB is a Web3 game platform that offers unique mission experiences, combining point accumulation, mystery box sales, and mini-games, allowing users to participate in XOOB seasonal activities and gain special missions and discounts in Web3 games.
DePIN
Distributed GPU Network Prodia Completes $15 Million Financing, Led by Dragonfly Capital
The distributed GPU network Prodia has raised $15 million for its AI reasoning solution, with Dragonfly Capital leading the investment. Participants in this financing round include HashKey, Web3.com, Index Ventures, Symbolic Capital, OKX Ventures, as well as angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal, and Bloq co-founder Matthew Roszak. Prodia utilizes Web3 infrastructure to provide low-latency and cost-effective AI media reasoning solutions.
ESG Data Oracle Project Nubila Raises $2.5 Million in Financing, Led by IoTeX and VeChain
The ESG data oracle project Nubila, which provides ESG data for decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) ecosystems, has initiated a new round of financing, with IoTeX and VeChain+Boston Consulting Group leading the investment, raising $2.5 million. OrangeDAO, MH Ventures, Future Money Group, SNZ Capital, DePINsurf, Kronos Research, Taisu Ventures, Bytetrade, Waterdrip Capital, Deepin Lab, Assembly Partners, Cyber, Radiance Ventures, and Genopets also participated. Nubila focuses on providing accurate ESG data for the DePIN ecosystem, aiming to drive sustainability through AI and tokenization. The funds will be used to expand its ESG data network, enhance data accuracy, and user engagement. Nubila plans to capture key environmental data through advanced weather stations and sensor networks to improve the accuracy of ESG assessments.
DePIN Project U2U Network Completes Seed Round Financing, Led by IDG Blockchain
The decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) project U2U Network has announced the completion of seed round financing, led by IDG Blockchain, with participation from dappOS, Pontem, Lumoz, ZkEX, Avalon, Catalyst, Grindery, and other institutions. The company did not disclose the specific amount of this round of financing but reportedly reached a "seven-figure" amount. U2U Network is building a Layer 1 blockchain network based on subnet technology, with each U2U subnet running independently of the main network, meaning that even if the U2U main network goes down, the subnets can continue to operate without interruption. U2U Network has also announced a $1 million donation to promote the development of the DePIN industry.
AI
Open Source AI Platform Sentient Completes $85 Million Seed Round Financing
The open-source AI platform Sentient has raised $85 million in seed round financing, led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. One of Sentient's core contributors is Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, and Sreeram Kannan, founder and CEO of EigenLayer, served as an advisor throughout. Other investors include Ethereal Ventures, Robot Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, Arrington Capital, HashKey Capital, Canonical Crypto, and Foresight Ventures. Sentient aims to compete with OpenAI by building open-source AI models through community contributions. Sentient will allow users to access and contribute to models and provide rewards based on contributions. The platform plans to launch a testnet in the third quarter of this year and will continue to build its platform with the new funds. Nailwal stated that Sentient will be built on Polygon and may create its own chain through the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK).
Blockchain company OpenLedger has raised $8 million in seed round financing led by Polychain Capital and Borderless Capital. Other participants include HashKey Capital, Finality Capital, Hash3, STIX, MH Ventures, Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon, and Kenny Li of Manta. OpenLedger focuses on building permissionless and data-driven infrastructure for AI development. The company plans to use this financing to expand its team and strengthen data pipeline infrastructure, with the mainnet expected to launch in the next quarter.
The AI+RWA project Compute Labs has reportedly completed a $3 million pre-seed round financing, with Protocol Labs leading the investment. Other participants include Blockchain Coinvestors, MH Ventures, OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, CMS, P2 Ventures, ArkStream Capital, Symbolic Capital, Ambush Capital, Amber Group, Oak Grove Ventures, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, and Austin Federa, strategic lead at Solana Foundation. Compute Labs, incubated by the NVIDIA Inception VC Alliance, aims to provide AI computing power returns for investors through the development of the enterprise-level AI computing power tokenization protocol CTP and GPU Restaking solutions. The CTP protocol is now live on the Solana testnet, with the mainnet expected to launch in Q3 and a Token Generation Event (TGE) planned to be completed by the end of the year.
The blockchain machine learning platform onaji has announced the completion of a $2.5 million pre-seed round financing, with Stratos leading the investment, along with participation from Maven11, Uniswap Labs Ventures, and IOSG Ventures. onaji has established a platform for training and deploying AI models that can autonomously participate in DeFi on Ethereum and Layer 2.
Infrastructure & Tools
The blockchain oracle project RedStone has raised $15 million in Series A financing, led by Arrington Capital. This funding will be used to recruit new team members. Other participants in this round of financing include SevenX, IOSG Ventures, Spartan Capital, White Star Capital, Kraken Ventures, Amber Group, Protagonist, gumi Cryptos, Samara Asset Group of Christian Angermayer, and HTX Ventures. RedStone is introducing its oracle into the emerging re-staking field of Ethereum. In April of this year, RedStone signed an agreement with Ether.fi, the largest re-staking service on EigenLayer, to receive $500 million in funding to help introduce its data oracle into the ecosystem. RedStone provides oracle data feed services covering multiple blockchain networks such as Ethereum, zkSync Era, Avalanche, Base, Polygon, Linea, Celo, Optimism, Arbitrum, Fantom, BNB Chain, and Blast.
Pi Squared, a company utilizing zero-knowledge technology for verifiable computation, has announced the raising of $12.5 million in seed round financing led by Polychain Capital. Other participants include ABCDE, Bloccelerate, Generative Ventures, Robot Ventures, Samsung Next, and angel investors including Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation and Sreeram Kanaan of EigenLayer. Pi Squared, led by computer science professor Grigore Rosu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, plans to use the new funds to expand its product. Pi Squared's first product is the "Universal Settlement Layer," which settles blockchain transactions in any programming language. The company is also developing the "Universal Zero-Knowledge Circuit," which will enable "trustless remote computation, AI, and interoperable smart contracts for any blockchain or dApp" through zero-knowledge technology. The project is expected to enter the testnet phase by the end of 2024.
The shared sorting network Astria has completed a $12.5 million financing round, led by dba and Placeholder VC.
The shared sorting network Astria has completed a strategic financing round of $12.5 million, led by dba and Placeholder VC, with participation from RockawayX. Maven11, 1kx, Figment Capital, and Batu are returning investors, and angel investors include Yuki, DCBuilder, Hasu, Will Price, and Jason Yanowitz, with Bankless Ventures also participating. The funds will be used to continue developing the Astria sorting layer and Astria Stack, allowing anyone to deploy permissionless aggregations without relying on centralized sorters. The on-chain NFT network Forma has already launched on the Astria Stack.
Blockchain data management startup SendBlocks has announced a $8.2 million seed round financing, led by Castle Island Ventures, with other investors including Pitango, Illuminate Financial, Laser Digital (Nomura), and Starkware. SendBlocks simplifies blockchain data access through its customizable platform, enabling enterprises, ecosystems, and applications to define and access the required data. Existing clients include Bancor and SphereX. SendBlocks' first product is the "Universal Settlement Layer," supporting settlement of blockchain transactions in any programming language. The company is also developing "Universal Zero-Knowledge Circuits" to achieve "trustless remote computation" and interoperable smart contracts across blockchains. The project is expected to enter the testnet phase by the end of 2024. This financing will be used to expand the research and development team and enhance marketing and sales efforts to attract more top protocols and ecosystems.
The Bitcoin scaling protocol QED has secured a $6 million seed round financing from Blockchain Capital, bringing its valuation to "nine figures" (at least $100 million). QED utilizes zero-knowledge proof technology and the Taproot upgrade to achieve processing of over 150,000 transactions per second, with the goal of building decentralized exchanges and DeFi applications. The testnet is expected to launch in 3-4 months, and the mainnet and native token will be released after community consensus. QED is headquartered in Hong Kong and plans to open its first office in Texas, USA. This seed round financing brings QED's total funding to $10.6 million. Previously, the company received $3.25 million in pre-seed financing from Arrington Capital, StarkWare, Draper Dragon, and $1.35 million in angel round financing from Sparkle Ventures supported by Animoca Brands.
Web3 security company Mamori has announced the completion of a $5 million seed round financing, led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Web3.com Ventures and Velocity Capital, and angel investors including Grigore Rosu, Daniel Lubarov, Alex Watts, Bo Du, Shujia Liang, Micheal Heinrich, and Antonio Viggiano. Mamori aims to enhance Web3 security by developing an algorithm capable of identifying blockchain software issues.
The on-chain reputation network Ethos Network has announced the completion of a $1.75 million pre-seed round financing, with participation solely from the on-chain community. The project aims to address on-chain fraud in Web3 by measuring on-chain credibility and reputation. The Ethos protocol provides a set of interconnected mechanisms, including review, guarantee, reduction, proof, credibility scoring, and governance, to incentivize ethical behavior and generate credibility scores.
UniSat, according to its official Twitter, completed a Pre-A round financing led by Binance in May 2024.
The blockchain development project Nycrypto Labs, dedicated to simplifying the transition from Web2 to Web3, has announced the completion of an $800,000 pre-seed round financing, led by DNA Fund, with participation from Transform Ventures and a group of angel investors. Specific valuation data has not been disclosed. The new funds will support the launch of the multi-chain wallet Tidus Wallet, which enables cross-chain lending and staking without leaving the application, to reduce the risks associated with bridging assets between different blockchain networks.
Open Campus has announced receiving funding from the Arbitrum Foundation to support the upcoming launch of the education blockchain EDU Chain. EDU Chain is the first Layer 3 blockchain designed specifically for education, and it will build a decentralized application ecosystem using the "Learn Own Earn" model. Open Campus will use its network to record learning achievements, expand educational financial solutions, and develop dapps. Additionally, Open Campus will support educational content projects in the Arbitrum Ambassador Program and participate in Arbitrum hackathons to incentivize developers building EDU Chain dapps.
Launch Platforms
- Monad Pad, the ecosystem token and NFT launch platform, has announced the completion of a $945,000 financing round, with participation from Cogitent Ventures, CMS Holdings, CSPDAO, Zephyrus Capital, vvvdotnet, FOMO Ventures, Exnetwork Capital, Sneaky Ventures, and Legion Ventures.
Crypto Memes
- The Solana ecosystem Meme project Pandiana has completed a $500,000 pre-seed round financing, with YNK Capital among the participants.
Solana ecosystem Meme project Pandiana has announced the completion of a $500,000 pre-seed round financing, with participation from YNK Capital, AlphaEquity Capital, and Gateron Ventures. Pandiana plans to integrate the Meme concept with the play-to-earn concept, and intends to expand its influence within the Solana ecosystem with the new funds, planning to launch the PNDA token presale this week.
Institutional Funds
Kleiner Perkins launches two new funds of $825 million and $1.2 billion respectively
The US venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins has announced the establishment of its twenty-first venture capital fund, KP21, with a fund size of $825 million to support startups. In addition, the company has also established its third select fund, KP Select III, with a fund size of $1.2 billion to support high-impact investments.
In a press release, the company stated, "With these new funds, our team's focus on enterprise software, consumer, healthcare, fintech, and hard tech remains unchanged. Each area will see tremendous acceleration due to artificial intelligence. Industries such as healthcare, law, and finance that require human low-level work and have slow software adoption will transform rapidly. New experiences and computational demands will bring opportunities for hardware and physical infrastructure. Today, imagination is the limiting factor for the future of technology." Previously, Kleiner Perkins has invested in NFT platform Autograph, crypto exchange Rain Financial, NFT authentication company Optic, and generative AI startup Together, among others.
DWF Labs launches $20 million native crypto fund Cloudbreak, targeting high-quality Chinese projects
DWF Labs announced on the X platform that it has launched the $20 million native crypto fund Cloudbreak, specifically providing funding and international strategic resource support for innovative and competitive high-quality Chinese projects. Projects in GameFi, SocialFi, Meme, AI, derivatives, or L1/L2 infrastructure are eligible to apply.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
