Highlights of this issue
From the perspective of financing scale and the structure of investors, institutional-level financial infrastructure is gaining capital favor. According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (June 8-14), there were 7 financing events in the global blockchain sector, with a total funding scale exceeding $582 million. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi sector announced 3 financing events, among which Morpho completed $175 million financing led by a16z Crypto, Paradigm, and Ribbit Capital;
- Infrastructure & Tools announced 3 financing events, where SignalPlus completed $50 million Series B1 financing with a $500 million valuation, led by HashKey Capital;
- Web3+AI sector announced 1 financing event, AI native trading decision platform TradingRazor completed $1.5 million seed round financing, led by OneBit Ventures;
- Equity Acquisition segment has 4 announcements, among which Metaplanet will fully acquire the Japanese licensed securities company Siiibo Securities for approximately $13.12 million.
DeFi
DeFi lending protocol Morpho announced the completion of $175 million financing, co-led by a16z crypto, Paradigm, and Ribbit Capital, with strategic investors including Apollo Global, VanEck, Circle Ventures, Ledger, Cathay Innovation, and others. Variant, Wintermute Ventures, Prelude, IOSG Ventures, HashKey Capital, Bpifrance, and Mirana Ventures also participated. The investment is priced on Morpho tokens based on the average price over the past month, with a valuation peaking at around $2 billion. Morpho allows institutions to customize lending markets and risk parameters on-chain and has attracted usage from Coinbase, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, and Galaxy Digital, among others. The protocol currently locks in about $6.6 billion and is accelerating competition with traditional DeFi lending protocols like Aave, while planning to expand further into high-yield DeFi asset allocations sought by traditional financial institutions.
MegaETH-based MNX completes $6.4 million pre-seed financing, led by Village Global
Decentralized futures exchange MNX has completed $6.4 million in pre-seed financing with a valuation of $40 million, led by Village Global, with participation from Cambrian, North Island Ventures, and others. MNX is built on Ethereum layer-2 network MegaETH and plans to launch its mainnet this summer, offering valuation futures, equity perpetual contracts, computing power perpetual contracts, and prediction markets centered around the AI economy, covering assets like AI laboratory valuations, computing power and electricity prices, copper prices, and related private equity and public equity. The platform employs a 200 milliseconds batch auction mechanism to reduce MEV and latency and will introduce liquidity through a team-managed Hyperliquidity Provider-style liquidity vault, targeting users including technology professionals and crypto traders seeking AI exposure.
TVL Capital raises $5 million to launch on-chain structured products
Former traditional finance structured derivatives trader Lars announced the co-founding of TVL Capital and the completion of $5 million in financing to launch chain-traded products (CTPs), positioned as on-chain equivalents of ETPs. Lars, who priced alternative derivatives at BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse, stated that DeFi has not yet reconstructed tools comparable to traditional structured products. TVL aims to bring compliant, composable structured derivatives (institutional-grade returns and complex yield structures) on-chain, initially relying on traditional financial infrastructure, with a long-term vision to create fully digital native products.
Infrastructure & Tools
Canton developer Digital Asset completes $355 million financing, led by a16z crypto
Canton network developer Digital Asset has completed $355 million financing, led by a16z crypto, with investors including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, S&P Global, SBI Group, SoFi, and Tradeweb. CEO Yuval Rooz stated that this round is equity financing, with most institutions being potential users of Canton; the funds will be used to accelerate collaborations with institutional partners, acquisitions, and participation in related projects. Canton is a public and permissionless Layer 1 blockchain targeting institutional finance, supporting privacy-configurable and asset tokenization workflows, and has supported the issuance of about $60 trillion in assets, with applications or validation involvement from JPMorgan, DTCC, Visa, and others.
EDGE Markets announced the completion of $29.2 million Series A financing led by CoinFund, with participation from Indicator Ventures, Mantis VC, Stepstone Group, Bullpen Capital, and others. The company will launch a high throughput banking platform EDGE Pro for prediction market market makers, supporting real-time deposits to all CFTC-regulated exchanges via a single account, and plans to apply for Introducing Broker and FCM licenses to achieve post-settlement across multiple liquidity pools and third-party margin access. At the same time, EDGE will launch a payment network EDGE Connect, designed exclusively for compliant betting and prediction markets, which will only charge fees for net new deposits within 24-48 hours, claiming to reduce payment processing costs by over 70%, and support user and operator real-time deposits 7×24 via RTP. Its VISA debit card product EDGE Boost has processed over $2 billion in transactions in one year since launching.
AIPayWithCrypto completes $10 million financing, led by Animoca Brands
AIPayWithCrypto announced the formal completion of $10 million in its first round of strategic financing, led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Titans Ventures, Castrum Capital, Adaverse, M2M Capital, and other institutions. It is reported that in addition to capital injection, all parties have also reached a deep strategic consensus to jointly build the future of AI and payment integration, as well as improve infrastructure to serve global users and AI economy entities. The APC platform will present a new AI+payment system to the market, solidifying its core competitiveness in the payment sector.
Web3+AI
AI native trading decision platform TradingRazor completes $1.5 million seed round financing, led by OneBit Ventures
AI native trading decision platform TradingRazor announced the completion of $1.5 million seed round financing, led by OneBit Ventures, Gaea Ventures, and Blockin VC, with a number of angel investors from the Web3 industry participating. The new funds will be used for product development and ecosystem growth to support on-chain fund flow tracking, market data aggregation, AI-driven trading modeling, and embedded risk management.
Acquisitions
Figure to acquire AI real estate loan platform Kiavi for $717 million
Blockchain financial platform Figure Technology Solutions has signed an agreement to acquire AI-driven residential real estate loan platform Kiavi, with a total transaction price of $717 million. A joint venture between Sixth Street and Figure will acquire Kiavi's balance sheet assets. Figure expects Kiavi to add over $7 billion in transaction volume annually. Following the transaction, Kiavi's CEO Arvind Mohan will join Figure as Chief Business Officer.
It is reported that Kiavi is an AI-driven residential real estate investment loan platform, with annual loan issuance exceeding $30 billion. After the transaction is completed, its residential transitional loans and leasing loans will be incorporated into Figure's on-chain capital market system.
Japanese listed Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet announced it will acquire all issued shares of Japanese licensed first-class securities company Siiibo Securities for 2.1 billion yen (approximately $13.12 million), making it a wholly-owned subsidiary. After the acquisition, Metaplanet plans to rename Siiibo Securities as Metaplanet Securities Inc.
This acquisition is the first significant merger and acquisition under Metaplanet's mid to long-term strategy “Project Nova,” aiming to build a Bitcoin-centric financial platform and ecosystem. Siiibo Securities holds a first-class financial instrument business license and operates an online corporate bond platform, with a customer base of individual and institutional investors. After the acquisition, the group will be able to develop and offer yield-generating products such as Bitcoin-linked bonds.
Blockworks acquires crypto data platform Messari for over $10 million
Crypto data provider Blockworks has acquired competitor Messari for over $10 million, a significant discount from Messari's approximately $300 million valuation in 2022. Reports indicate that the transaction reflects the survival pressures faced by previously overvalued startups amid a deepening crypto bear market. Blockworks was founded in 2018, initially focusing on media and events, later expanding into news, research, and data business, and closed its news department last October to shift focus to data, investor relations, and compliance services. The company recently completed a financing extension, with a valuation of approximately $192 million.
Solana infrastructure company Helius acquires Light Protocol to expand on-chain privacy
Solana infrastructure company Helius announced the acquisition of Light Protocol to expand on-chain privacy solutions. Light Protocol was established in 2021, initially focusing on zero-knowledge proof privacy tools, and later co-developed the ZK Compression data solution with Helius, set to launch in 2024. ZK Compression is an infrastructure framework that utilizes zero-knowledge proofs to reduce data storage costs on Solana.
Helius stated that after the acquisition, Light Protocol will refocus on its initial zero-knowledge privacy direction, planning to build a zero-knowledge proof-based privacy protocol aimed at private payments and private DeFi on Solana, combining Helius's distribution and infrastructure capabilities. The protocol will be fully programmable and configurable, supporting retail and institutional use cases. Helius plans to open the new privacy infrastructure to developers in the coming months.
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