Highlights of this Issue
According to PANews incomplete statistics, there were 25 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide last week (7.22-7.28), with a total fund size exceeding $132 million. Both the number of events and the fund size have increased. An overview is as follows:
- DeFi: There were 6 investment and financing events, including the liquidity staking platform aPriori based on the Monad blockchain completing an $8 million seed round of financing, led by Pantera Capital.
- Web3 Games: There were 3 investment and financing events, including NPC Labs, a Web3 game infrastructure company founded by former Coinbase employees, raising $21 million in two rounds of financing.
- AI: There were 5 investment and financing events, with AI-driven data and infrastructure platform DAOBase announcing the completion of a $6 million financing round, with participation from SevenX Ventures, among others.
- Infrastructure and Tools: There were 6 financing events, including the Web3 infrastructure platform Caldera completing a $15 million Series A financing round, led by Founders Fund.
- Other Blockchain/Crypto Applications: There were 2 financing events, including the Web3 community platform OpenSocial Protocol completing a $6 million strategic financing round.
- Centralized Finance: There were 2 financing events, including the Bitcoin-denominated trading service platform Roxom announcing the completion of a $4.3 million Pre-Seed round of financing.
DeFi
The liquidity staking platform aPriori, based on the Monad blockchain, completed an $8 million seed round of financing, led by Pantera Capital. Institutional investors participating in this round include Consensys, OKX Ventures, CMS Holdings, ABCDE, Gumi Cryptos Capital, Flow Traders, Laser Digital, Chorus One, Everstake Capital, and Staking Facilities. Angel investors include Spencer Noon from OurNetwork, Marc Tillement from Pyth Network, Robinson Burkey from Wormhole Foundation, TN Lee from Pendle Finance, and Zano Sherwani from Jito Labs. Last year, the project raised $2 million in a pre-seed financing round led by Hashed and Arrington Capital. At that time, the project was building the largest extractable value (MEV) project related to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain ecosystem, but later decided to focus on the Monad blockchain ecosystem.
The liquidity staking protocol Kintsu, based on the Monad blockchain, completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, CMT Digital, Spartan Group, Breed VC, CMS Holdings, Animoca Ventures, and angel investors including Alex Matthews and Ross Trachtman from Brevan Howard Digital, Marin Tvrdic from Lido, and Robinson Burkey from Wormhole Foundation. Kintsu is a liquidity staking protocol founded by Stephen Novenstern last year, who previously served as the strategic director of the decentralized exchange Pangolin on the Avalanche blockchain. Kintsu initially built a liquidity staking protocol for the Aleph Zero blockchain, but is now focusing on Monad. Kintsu's liquidity staking token sMONAD will be launched in the first week of Monad's release, and the mainnet of Monad is expected to be launched sometime this year. Whether Kintsu will launch a token will be decided later by the DAO.
- Etherfuse completes $3 million financing, led by White Star Capital and North Island Ventures
The tokenized real-world asset platform Etherfuse announced the completion of a $3 million financing round to bring emerging market debt onto the chain. White Star Capital and North Island Ventures jointly led the investment, with participation from The Department of XYZ, The Stellar Development Foundation, Funfair, and angel investors Alice Ann Schwartz and Anna Yuan. The new funds will support Etherfuse in achieving its mission of providing the debt and assets needed by the next generation of blockchain developers programmatically, making global capital markets more efficient and convenient through blockchain technology.
DeFi solution LayerPixel designed for Telegram announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of financing, led by Kenetic Capital, with participation from Waterdrip Capital, Foresight Ventures, VentureSouq, Web3Port, Microcosm Labs, and TON Market Maker Club. This funding will help LayerPixel accelerate the development and integration of its DeFi solution suite in the Telegram mini-app ecosystem. LayerPixel aims to make blockchain financial services accessible to everyone in the TON ecosystem by providing an integrated platform equipped with an intuitive wallet PixelWallet, a DEX called "PixelSwap," and an oracle called Pixacle.
Based on Monad, the on-chain order book exchange Kuru completed a $2 million seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital. Other participating investors in this round include Brevan Howard Digital, CMS Holdings, Pivot Global, Breed, and Velocity Capital. Angel investors include Keone Hon, Jarry Xiao, and Eugene Chen. Kuru plans to use the new capital to expand its team and prepare for audits before the launch of the Monad testnet. Kuru claims to be the first fully on-chain order book DEX on Monad, providing users with a single platform to discover, research, and trade on-chain spot assets. The Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 network Monad is currently in the development network stage and achieved 10,000 TPS in internal testing in March. The public testnet for Monad is expected to be launched soon, with the mainnet expected to be released later this year.
RiskLayer completes Builders Round financing, jointly led by Antler and Momentum 6
EigenLayer's DeFi security middleware RiskLayer completed Builders Round financing, jointly led by Antler and Momentum 6, with participation from Wagmi Ventures, Hypotenuse Ventures, and angel investors including Richard Ma.
Web3 Games
Web3 game infrastructure startup NPC Labs has raised $21 million in funding in Pre-Seed and seed rounds, with $3 million raised in the Pre-Seed round and $18 million raised in the latest seed round led by Pantera Capital. Other investors in the latest round include Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, and Mantle EcoFund.
NPC Labs, founded by three former Coinbase employees, aims to increase the adoption of on-chain games through the B3.fun extension platform built on Base. The B3.fun platform is currently in the testnet, and the mainnet release of B3 will be announced by B3 and its foundation at a later date.
Web3 game project Panda Titan receives $3 million investment from Archer Capital
Investment firm Archer Capital disclosed on the X platform that the Web3 game project Panda Titan has received a $3 million investment from Archer Capital. This round of financing will accelerate Panda Titan's pace in technological innovation and market expansion.
Panda Titan is a Web3 metaverse project focused on building a GameFi-centric Web3 metaverse ecosystem.
Binance Labs announced that it has led the investment in Pluto Studio Limited, the GameFi release platform for Catizen. In March of this year, Pluto Studio launched its flagship project, Catizen. Catizen is a game bot on Telegram that seamlessly integrates Telegram with the TON blockchain. In just a few months, the Catizen community has grown to approximately 25 million players, about 1.5 million on-chain game players, and over 500,000 paying users worldwide. The game also leads the TON blockchain ecosystem, consistently topping the Open League app rankings for three consecutive seasons.
DePIN
DePIN project Multiple Network completes $2 million seed round of financing
The DePIN project Multiple Network announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of financing, with participation from OKX Ventures, Youbi Capital, Stratified Capital, Puzzle Ventures, CatcherVC, and BitriseCapital.
Multiple Network is a Web3 DePIN project that uses SD-WAN technology to build a network layer for high-performance transmission of digital assets and data.
AI
AI-driven data and infrastructure platform DAOBase completes $6 million financing
AI-driven data and infrastructure platform DAOBase announced the completion of a $6 million financing round, with participation from SevenX Ventures, AntAlpha Ventures, Tanuki Studio, y2z Ventures, Slingshot Labs, LD Capital, Mix Marvel DAO Venture, TI Capital, Bitrise Capital, Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox, and Dmytro Kotliarov, co-founder of DeXe Protocol. DAOBase is a platform specifically tailored for DAOs, providing AI-driven data and infrastructure. The company helps DAOs and voters establish their own on-chain and off-chain data reputation layers using algorithms, enabling users to intelligently monitor DAO governance and explore future work modes. The platform seamlessly integrates six blockchains, covering over 160,000 DAOs and 6 million voters.
Web3 AI company Network3 raises $5 million in two rounds of financing
Web3 AI company Network3 raised $5 million in Pre-Seed and seed rounds of financing. EV3, IoTeX Eco Fund, SNZ, Waterdrip Capital, and Bing Ventures participated in the investment. This financing round represents all of Network3's funding to date. Network3 is building a decentralized AI infrastructure that distributes tasks to numerous devices, reducing latency while prioritizing privacy. The company plans to use this financing to expand its team and continue developing its technology stack.
Redpill, a decentralized AI technology innovation platform, announces the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Animoca Brands and DFG, with participation from Jsquare, Hypersphere, IOSG Ventures, Outlier Venture, PAKA, Sanctor Capital, TKX Capital, Gate.io Venture, LD Capital, Incuba Alpha, and MEXC. Angel investors include Ethereum and Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood, and Moonbeam founder Derek Yoo. Redpill, formerly known as Cyphermod, is an SDK for metaverse AI development that has been repositioned to leverage the transformative potential of AI combined with blockchain technology. The platform acts as a permissionless LLM router network, providing seamless integration between various AI models. Users can customize their AI interactions based on performance, cost, or efficiency, and Redpill will intelligently route to the optimal LLM.
The AI computing power protocol TES AI, which debuted on BNB Chain, has completed a $5 million Series A financing round at a valuation of $100 million, led by X FORCE Foundation. Other participating institutions and angel investors include OIG Investment, Group Newman Capital, CMCC Global, Donahue Lawrence, Byron Hobbes, Brian Katte, and Olive Colclough. TES AI adopts a high deflation, computing power balance mechanism, burning mechanism, and innovative Dex414 protocol. It utilizes distributed computing and smart contract technology to provide powerful computing support for real-time data processing, AI applications, and other high computing power demand scenarios. TES AI charges fees and distributes innovative token rewards through its platform to users who purchase computing power nodes.
Web3 AI platform Assisterr completes $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing
According to Cointelegraph, Web3 AI platform Assisterr has announced the completion of a $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing. Investors include Web3.com Ventures, Moonhill Capital, Contango, Outlier Ventures, Decasonic, Zephyrus Capital, Wise3 Ventures, Saxon, GFI Ventures, X Ventures, Koyamaki, Lucid Drakes Ventures, and angel investors such as Michael Heinrich, co-founder and CEO of 0g.ai, Mark Rydon, co-founder and CEO of Aethir, Nader Dabit, Developer Relations Director at Eigen Labs, Anthony Lesoismier-Geniaux, co-founder of SwissBorg, and Ethan Francis, Developer Relations Manager at Particle Network.
Assisterr is a Cambridge-based AI infrastructure startup that aims to enable developers to build their own AI use cases using Assisterr's infrastructure. Leveraging the Solana blockchain, Assisterr allows the community to collaborate, aggregate, and monetize their data and expertise in their respective fields. The Small Language Model (SLM) is a customized AI model optimized to run efficiently on edge devices focused on specific domain tasks.
Infrastructure & Tools
Web3 infrastructure platform Caldera has completed a $15 million Series A financing round, led by Founders Fund, with participation from Dragonfly, Sequoia Capital, Arkstream Capital, Lattice, and others. The Series A financing brings Caldera's total funding to $25 million, as the company previously raised $10 million last year. With the new funding, Caldera is building a "Metalayer" aimed at unifying decentralized Layer 2 and Layer 3 ecosystems. Caldera CEO Matt Katz stated that there are currently no plans for token issuance. Caldera is a Rollup-as-a-Service platform that helps developers quickly launch their own application chains based on technologies like Optimism. Caldera has helped over 50 projects launch their Rollup, including Manta Pacific, Injective, and ApeChain.
Igloo, Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, has announced the completion of over $11 million in financing led by Founders Fund, with participation from Distributed Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital. Igloo plans to invest this strategic financing in the development of its new business, Cube Labs, which will oversee and contribute to the development of Abstract. Abstract is a new consumer-focused blockchain incubated by the non-profit organization Abstract Foundation, and its testnet will be launched soon. In addition to co-founders Michael Lee, Luca Netz, and Lorenzo Melendez, the Abstract engineering team includes Web3 developers Cygaar, 0xbeans, and stinkypablo.
Bitlayer completes $11 million Series A financing, led by Franklin Templeton and ABCDE
Bitcoin-native Layer 2 network Bitlayer has announced the completion of an $11 million Series A financing round, led by Franklin Templeton Digital Assets and ABCDE. Other participating institutions in this round of financing include Stake Capital Group, WAGMI Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Flow Traders, GSR Ventures, FalconX, Metalpha, 280 Capital, Presto Labs, and Caladan. Bitlayer is the first Bitcoin-secure equivalent Layer 2 based on BitVM, aiming to introduce super scalability to Bitcoin while inheriting its security, providing users with a high-throughput, low-cost trading experience.
Metabit Network recently announced the successful completion of a new $10 million round of strategic financing. The company stated that it will use this funding to drive innovation and development in the blockchain technology field. Metabit is a blockchain platform based on the hybrid consensus mechanism PoAS, allowing different nodes to play different roles, providing physical operation networks, validation, packaging settlement, storage, and bandwidth. Building upon this architecture, the transition to the AI-based multi-dimensional intelligent architecture in the Metabit v2.0 phase is connected to the rapidly developing AI ecosystem. It aims to provide high-performance infrastructure for large-scale commercial applications, fundamentally changing the Web3 ecosystem.
Bitcoin scaling network Mezo completes $7.5 million strategic financing round
The Bitcoin scaling network Mezo, built by the venture studio Thesis, announced that it has raised $7.5 million in a strategic financing round led by Ledger Cathay Fund. Other investors in this round of financing include ArkStream Capital, Aquarius Fund, Flowdesk, GSR, Origin Protocol, and Bybit's ecosystem project Mantle EcoFund. Three months ago, Mezo completed a $21 million financing round led by Pantera Capital, bringing the total funding to $30 million with this latest financing.
Mezo plans to expand the adoption of its network, including integrating more products into its network, such as its Bitcoin staking platform Acre, which allows users to enter Mezo by depositing Thesis's tBTC or WBTC. The stBTC can then be used in decentralized applications to earn additional income. The platform has approximately 12,000 users who have deposited approximately 2,376 bitcoins, currently valued at around $160 million. Mezo issues "HODL Proof" points to its depositors, having distributed over 1.2 billion points to the top ten users so far. When asked if these points will be redeemed for Mezo's own tokens later, Luongo stated that details will be announced soon. The release date of the MEZO token will also be announced later. Thesis, founded in 2013, has established several Bitcoin-focused projects, including Mezo, Acre, tBTC, and Fold.
EVM-compatible zkRollup network Zircuit announced the completion of mainnet financing, with participants including Binance Labs, Mirana Ventures, Amber Group, Selini, Robot Ventures, Nomad Capital, Borderless Capital, and notable angel investors such as Renzo, Etherfi, Pendle, Parallel, LayerZero, Axelar, F2Pool, Nonce, KelpDAO, ETHGlobal, and Maelstrom founders. Zircuit is a ZK Rollup with sequencer-level security and parallel circuits that support AI. The first phase of Zircuit's mainnet is expected to launch in the coming weeks.
Others
Web3 Social
Web3 community platform OpenSocial Protocol has completed a $6 million strategic financing round, led by Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures, with participation from Hivemind Capital Partners, Stratos, Moonrock Capital, Chorus One, HV Capital, X Ventures, Gate Labs, Panga Capital, Aspen Digital, and a group of angel investors. This round of financing brings OpenSocial's total funding to $26 million. The OpenSocial Protocol builds elements of intellectual property, community relationships, monetization, and financial incentives for Web3 applications. The platform provides infrastructure for multi-chain community economic development, prioritizing user retention and growth while reducing bot activity.
Nascent and IDEO CoLab Ventures announced their investment in the decentralized social platform aggregator Yup, with participation from Dan Romero of Farcaster. Yup helps creators grow content, audience, and monetization more effectively through aggregation and building tools, aiming to drive the development of open social platforms. Yup enables creators to connect accounts across multiple social platforms, including Farcaster, Twitter, Lens, & Bluesky, and simultaneously publish content, increasing high-quality content on emerging platforms. Yup also provides more direct income opportunities, such as content creation rewards through the Yup token (YUP). Yup is live on the Base network.
Centralized Finance
Bitcoin-denominated trading service platform Roxom announced the completion of a $4.3 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Draper Associate under Tim Draper, with participation from Borderless, Cadenza Ventures, Kingsway Capital, NewtopiaVC, and a group of angel investors. Specific valuation information has not been disclosed. Roxom is a stock, commodity, and futures exchange priced and denominated in Bitcoin, allowing users to view global financial markets in Bitcoin and support trading with Bitcoin.
CeDeFi platform BitFi completes seed round financing, with participation from IBC Group Ventures
CeDeFi platform BitFi announced the completion of seed round financing on the X platform, with participation from Fundamental Labs, IBC Group Ventures, CGV FoF, TyreGate Capital Group, and Citizen Journalism Network Accelerator (CJNA). The specific amount has not been disclosed. BitFi primarily provides BTC-based multi-asset yield services through cross-chain technology and off-chain asset management strategies.
Galaxy, led by Michael Novogratz, raises $113 million for new crypto venture capital fund
Billionaire Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Asset Management division has raised $113 million for its new venture fund, which invests in early-stage startups focused on crypto software, infrastructure, and financial applications.
Galaxy Ventures Fund I LP aims to build a portfolio of around 30 investments. The fund has already invested in projects such as Ethena, Monad, and Plume. According to a statement from Galaxy Digital Holdings on Thursday, the fund is expected to continue raising funds, with a target of reaching $150 million by next year. Will Nuelle, another general partner of the fund, stated that the fund expects to invest $3-5 million in each project, although the amount may vary.
The digital asset company Galaxy Ventures has been investing $30-50 million annually in various crypto startups for infrastructure, decentralized finance, and payments, using Galaxy's own funds. Last year, Galaxy decided to incorporate the group into its asset management division and launched the Galaxy Ventures Fund I, open to external investors.
Gam3Girl Ventures receives strategic investment from BITKRAFT Ventures
Web3 game incubation fund Gam3Girl Ventures has announced a strategic investment from BITKRAFT Ventures. This move aims to strengthen BITKRAFT's influence in Asia and support Web2 game developers in transitioning to Web3. Gam3Girl Ventures, founded by former global gaming company investment executive FD, focuses on incubating teams with Web2 game experience but lacking Web3 experience. With the support of BITKRAFT, Gam3Girl Ventures will help these teams undergo a comprehensive transformation from product positioning to token issuance, driving community-driven game economic models.
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