Highlights of this issue
In the AI sector, AI data center developer Crusoe completed a $3 billion financing with a $30 billion valuation, increasing its valuation to three times its previous amount within 10 months; heterogeneous computing scheduling company Gimlet Labs and optical interconnect manufacturer iPronics respectively raised $300 million and $125 million.
In the robotics sector, Physical AI perception company Lyte completed $165 million in Series C financing, and supplier Yushu's Joint Imaging also secured hundreds of millions in funding, jointly participated by industrial capital, state-owned enterprises, and market institutions.
In the crypto financing market, the Southeast Asian blockchain industry has attracted $680 million in equity financing as of 2026, more than double the $319 million raised in total for 2025. Geographically, Southeast Asia's cryptocurrency investment market is primarily centered around Singapore, which accounts for 82.5% of the historical total financing of $6.2 billion for Southeast Asian blockchain companies.
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (8.31-9.6) there were 10 funding events in the global blockchain industry, with a total funding amount exceeding $12.8 million. The summary is as follows:
- DeFi risk protocol Firelight Protocol completed $8 million financing;
- Digital currency network Cari completed $32.5 million in its first round of financing, with participation from several banks including First Horizon Bank;
- Stablecoin cross-border remittance startup Felix Pago completed $200 million in Series B financing, with participation from a16z;
- Polymarket completed a new round of financing amounting to $1 billion, led by 1789 Capital with an investment of approximately $300 million;
- On-chain bank OpenReserve completed $25 million in seed round financing, led by a16z crypto.
Crypto Financing
DeFi
DeFi risk protocol Firelight Protocol completed $8 million financing
The DeFi risk protocol Firelight Protocol completed $8 million in financing, led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects, Tribe Capital, and others. This protocol was incubated by DeFi infrastructure provider Sentora and plans to launch its first batch of security integrations in September to provide smart contract attack protection for fintech companies participating in on-chain yields. Firelight currently uses XRP as collateral and will expand to high liquidity, non-native yield assets like bitcoin and Stellar's XLM. Its claims process is assessed by independent risk control agencies such as GFX Labs, Hypernative, Credora, Native, and Cyfrin, aiming to complete the review, liquidation, and compensation of qualified claims within about 10 days.
Based on Solana, the gamified meme coin release platform and synthetic leveraged trading platform Catapult Trade announced it has raised approximately $6.6 million so far through four rounds of financing: Seed, Private, KOL, and Early Public, with investors including KuCoin Ventures, Oddiyana Ventures, Venture Vault VC, as well as several institutions and angel investors including LIS Skins founders and Trady founders. The project team stated that the complete list of investors and details of each round will be disclosed two weeks prior to the TGE of the tokens, which is expected to launch in the fall of 2026, with more updates announced in September.
Infrastructure
Bank-led digital currency network Cari announced it has raised $32.5 million in its first external financing round, with all funds coming from banking institutions, including First Horizon Bank, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, M&T Bank, Old National Bank, SouthState Bank, and Glacier Bank. Cari is built on an Ethereum-based permissioned Layer 2 blockchain, aimed at helping banks on-chain funds through shared infrastructure, providing programmable financial services. The new funds will accelerate bank access and integration, and expand tokenized deposit and programmable currency application scenarios.
Stablecoin payment infrastructure startup Diameter Pay completed $10 million in Series A financing
Stablecoin payment infrastructure startup Diameter Pay completed $10 million in Series A financing, led jointly by CMT Digital and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from SixThirty Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, Tech Council Ventures, Onigiri Capital, and BitRock Capital.
This is Diameter Pay's first round of financing since its establishment. The company's founder and CEO David Lighton stated that it had previously been self-funded. This round of financing began in April this year and completed in July, with transactions conducted in equity form, specific post-investment valuation undisclosed. Established in 2023, the company primarily provides payment infrastructure for banks, fintech companies, and digital asset exchanges, helping clients obtain USD virtual accounts, domestic and international payments, stablecoin deposits and withdrawals, and compliance controls through partnerships with U.S. banks. Their USD virtual accounts enable overseas fintech companies to provide USD accounts for their clients, with Diameter Pay responsible for compliance and payment control behind the scenes, and can connect with stablecoin infrastructure.
The quantum-resistant EVM Layer 1 blockchain DAC announced it received a $1 million investment from Unicorn Crypto Ventures. DAC focuses on building EVM-compatible blockchain infrastructure that can withstand quantum computing attacks. It is built on a Quadrans fork and employs a three-layer node architecture and PoQW consensus, driving ecology and transaction execution through a dual-asset model (DACT/DACC), providing scalable, quantum-resistant blockchain infrastructure for developers and enterprises.
Centralized Finance
Stablecoin cross-border remittance startup Felix Pago announced it completed $200 million in Series B financing, which includes $87 million in equity financing and $113 million in credit line financing. Equity financing was participated by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), while the credit line financing came from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund.
Felix Pago is currently one of the most representative stablecoin remittance networks in Latin America, primarily using WhatsApp as a front-end interface, and leveraging USDC and blockchain as the underlying settlement infrastructure, significantly reducing cross-border remittance costs and settlement times from the U.S. to Mexico.
On-chain bank OpenReserve completed $25 million in seed round financing, a16z crypto led the round
On-chain bank OpenReserve announced it completed $25 million in seed round financing, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Jump Capital, Acrew, Coinbase Ventures, Clocktower, Quona, and Middle East venture capital fund AAF Management. OpenReserve aims to create a "never-closing" bank, employing a programmable architecture similar to blockchain for its core ledger, supporting stablecoin and tokenized deposit-driven continuous settlements, instant fund transfers, and atomic transactions, while providing on-chain credit through a regulated bank balance sheet.
a16z Crypto believes that the internet has reshaped retail, communication, and payments over the past 30 years, but the backend infrastructure of banks still heavily relies on the traditional banking system, making mechanisms such as bank operating hours, ACH, and wire transfer settlements insufficient to meet the demands of the internet economy.
Colombian fintech company Plenti completed $3 million in seed round financing, Tether led the round
Colombian fintech company Plenti completed $3 million in seed round financing, led by Tether, with participation from Verda Ventures. The new funds will support existing operations in Colombia and expand into Peru and Bolivia. Plenti, established in 2022, provides multi-currency account services for freelancers and remote workers, allowing users to hold USD, EUR, and Colombian Pesos, earn balance yields, and invest in US stocks, ETFs, digital gold, and crypto assets. The company has served over 150,000 active users, with an annual transaction volume exceeding $3.1 billion, and has processed over 680 million USDT since 2023.
Predictive Markets
According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, predictive market platform Polymarket completed a new round of $1 billion financing, led by 1789 Capital which invested around $300 million, bringing Polymarket's post-financing valuation to about $21 billion. 1789 Capital has previously invested around $200 million in Polymarket, and after this round, it will become one of its largest investors. The largest investor of Polymarket currently is the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which previously disclosed it holds shares in Polymarket valued at $1.6 billion, approximately 22% of the company’s issued shares.
The predictive market platform ParlayX completed $1.25 million in Pre-Seed financing, led by Dreamcraft Ventures. The platform aims to solve the limitation of “one account per person” in predictive markets, allowing team collaborative trading.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Figure completed the $717 million acquisition of AI real estate loan platform Kiavi
Figure Technology Solutions completed the $717 million acquisition of the AI real estate loan platform Kiavi, integrating its lending business into Figure's blockchain infrastructure. Kiavi is expected to add over $7 billion in priority lien loan volume annually to Figure Connect, with more than $100 million flowing into Figure's on-chain lending platform Democratized Prime each month. The transaction is divided into two parts: Figure acquires Kiavi's technology platform and operating assets, while Figure, together with a Six Street joint venture, acquires Kiavi's loans. The actual cash expenditure for Figure is approximately $590 million, financed through the issuance of $600 million in 8.5% senior notes. Kiavi's CEO Arvind Mohan will join Figure as Chief Business Officer.
Fomo acquires Mobula's data indexing software and team for $17 million
On-chain social trading app Fomo has acquired Mobula's data indexing software and team for $17 million. Fomo CEO Paul Erlanger stated that traders need timely price, trading, and wallet data to make informed decisions on whom to follow and what to buy.
AI & Robotics Financing Highlights
Hardware & Infrastructure
AI data center developer Crusoe completed $3 billion financing with a $30 billion valuation
AI data center developer Crusoe completed $3 billion in financing, achieving a valuation of $30 billion, co-led by Atreides Management and Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Mubadala Capital, under the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. Crusoe's clients include Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI, and it recently signed a five-year, $13 billion GPU and AI infrastructure cloud contract with quant trading giant Jane Street.
This financing comes just 10 months after completing $1.38 billion in funding at a $10 billion valuation last October. Founded in 2018, Crusoe initially utilized waste gas for Bitcoin mining and later transformed into an AI infrastructure and cloud service provider, known for developing large-scale data center campuses. Axios reported last month that Crusoe has met with investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to discuss a potential IPO.
AI infrastructure startup Gimlet completed $300 million in financing, valuation reaches $3 billion
AI infrastructure startup Gimlet Labs announced it completed $300 million in financing, with the company’s valuation rising to $3 billion. This round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Arm Holdings and Microsoft's venture fund M12. Gimlet Labs primarily helps clients distribute AI tasks to different types of chips and is working with Arm to make its software compatible with Arm’s various chip technologies.
AI data center optical interconnect company iPronics announced it completed $125 million in Series B financing, co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, Triatomic Capital, Bosch Ventures, Catalight Capital, and the European Innovation Council fund. The company’s total funding has now reached $177 million. iPronics mainly provides rack-mounted optical switching equipment for AI infrastructure, enabling AI clusters to adjust network connections in real-time for training and inference loads through a programmable optical layer. The new funding will be used to expand operational scale and accelerate commercialization deployment.
AI Applications & Model Training
AI security startup AIR completed $50 million financing, led by Sequoia and Greenoaks
AI security startup AIR completed $50 million in financing, with Sequoia Capital leading the first round of $10 million and Greenoaks leading the second round of $40 million, along with participation from Swish, Netz, and several angel investors. The company was founded by senior members of Israel’s 8200 unit Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, and offers an AI agent security platform that can discover AI agents operating within enterprises, continuously review the skills and tools they use, and prevent interaction with non-compliant software or external sources, while providing vetted AI agent plugins and skills marketplace.
AI training data startup AfterQuery completed a new round of financing, achieving a valuation of $3.2 billion, just five months after completing $30 million in Series A financing at a $300 million valuation, growing its valuation over tenfold. According to Y Combinator partner Gustaf Alströmer, this is the fastest a startup has grown from founding to unicorn in YC's history. The founders of AfterQuery are only 22 and 23 years old and recently participated in YC’s winter batch for 2025, 18 months ago. The company announced in April its annualized revenue reached $100 million, with clients including NVIDIA, Legora, and Korean AI lab Motif Technologies. AfterQuery focuses on training models and agents to perform tasks like professionals rather than just ensuring the accuracy of answers.
Sequoia Capital-incubated infrastructure prediction startup Empirik has officially become independent and completed $21 million in seed round financing, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Canapi, and Alumni Ventures. The platform uses AI to track system changes and predict potential impacts, providing alerts before failures occur, acting as a self-driving "traffic police" — approving low-risk changes, setting barriers for large-scale changes, and marking dangerous updates for manual review. Empirik has served Fortune 500 companies like S&P Global and Guardant Health, aiming to provide infrastructure engineers similar efficiency improvements as Cursor and Claude Code provide to developers. Sequoia partners say Empirik is currently a self-sustaining system that can serve as a complementary layer for AI SRE platforms.
German AI data analysis startup Zeit AI completed €5 million in seed round financing, with investors including Y Combinator, the University of Oxford Seed Fund, Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, ACE Ventures, and HPVC, affiliated with SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner. Angel investors include former German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, 2014 World Cup champion Mario Götze, and Meta board member Charlie Songhurst.
Founded two years ago by two former Palantir employees, Zeit AI’s product, ZeitMind, is an autonomous data analyst that can automatically process raw data and generate applications such as reports, alerts, and inventory optimization without manual data engineers being involved.
Robotics & Physical AI
Physical AI company Lyte completed $165 million in Series C financing, led by Maverick Silicon
Physical AI company Lyte announced it completed $165 million in Series C financing, led by Maverick Silicon, with Fidelity Management & Research, Atreides Management, Key1 Capital, and Ora Global participating, achieving a post-financing valuation of $1.6 billion. Founded in 2021 by former Apple and PrimeSense engineers, Lyte focuses on providing a complete perception technology stack for robots, including custom chips, multimodal sensors, and spatial software. To date, the company has raised a total of $272 million, and these funds will be used to expand the production scale of perception chips and its LyteVision platform and advance AI perception capabilities and the commercialization of robotics.
Yushu supplier Joint Imaging completed a new round of financing worth hundreds of millions
Embodied robot vision manufacturer Joint Imaging completed a new round of financing worth hundreds of millions, with joint participation from industrial capital, state-owned enterprises, and marketized institutions, investors include Dunhong Asset, Hangzhou Embodied Intelligence Industry Fund, Fuyang Industrial Investment, and Zhipingfang. Joint Imaging is a visual supplier for humanoid robot manufacturers and AI hardware manufacturers like Yushu, Zhipingfang, Self-Variable, and Rokid, and its revenue has already reached the level of 2 billion.
With this round of financing, Joint Imaging will further upgrade its strategic positioning as "the visual infrastructure of the physical AI world," integrating optical design, visual modules, depth cameras, edge AI, data collection, AI base engineering toolchain, and scalable manufacturing capability to serve customers from Idea to mass production. Meanwhile, Joint Imaging is advancing a smart vision industry project worth over 1 billion in Hangzhou.
Mergers and Acquisitions
SLB invests $3.4 billion to acquire data center cooling company Kelvion
Oil service giant SLB will acquire data center cooling service provider Kelvion for $3.4 billion in cash and assume $700 million in debt, with the transaction expected to close in the first half of 2027. Kelvion is currently controlled by funds managed by Apollo Funds, and SLB will also acquire a minority stake from a fund under Triton. This acquisition will expand SLB’s data center infrastructure solution business driven by artificial intelligence. SLB expects to enhance earnings per share and free cash flow within 12 months post-transaction, and achieve annual savings of approximately $120 million through cost synergies and new revenues within three years, with Apollo Funds and Kelvion advised by Guggenheim Securities and USB AG.
Investment Institutions
a16z growth fund expands to $8.5 billion, recently raised $1.1 billion AI hardware fund
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has expanded its fifth growth fund from $6.75 billion at its establishment in January to $8.5 billion, adding $1.75 billion. A few days prior, a16z announced it raised $1.1 billion for a newly established "Machine Age Fund", focusing on AI hardware startups, including chips, memory, networks, and storage. This growth fund has been operating for seven years and has invested in over 100 companies, now focusing on enterprise-grade and consumer-grade AI technologies, defense technology, robotics, hardware and software infrastructure, and health technology. In January of this year, a16z also announced a new fund of $15 billion, with total assets under management reaching $90 billion.
Dragoneer Investment Group originally planned to form a $2 billion continuation fund with its holdings in high-quality private equity assets like OpenAI and SpaceX, ultimately raising about $1 billion. Sources say Dragoneer considered including holdings in Databricks and wealth management firm Creative Planning to facilitate transactions and create liquidity for investors in a currently weak exit environment. The core objective behind this continuation fund is to extend holding periods for assets like Amwins Group and health technology company PointClickCare. Reports indicate that the discount range for this transaction is about 5%-20%, with some targeted assets not priced at a discount, while the average discount for venture capital and growth-stage secondary transactions in the first half of this year was 30%-35%.
Former NBA player Omri Casspi has raised $250 million for the third fund of his venture capital firm Swish Ventures, increasing the company's assets under management to about $800 million. New fund investors include Sequoia Capital, American pension funds, U.S. universities, and family offices. The new fund is expected to invest in about 12 startups, with an average single investment of about $20 million, focusing on seed and Series A rounds in areas including cybersecurity, tech infrastructure, physical AI, defense, industrial AI, and government technology.
Since its inception, Swish has invested in 20 companies, 8 of which have become unicorns, with a total estimated portfolio value exceeding $60 billion. It previously participated in the $7 million seed round financing of Web3 company Antic, as well as $13.5 million in financing for Web3 identity verification startup Dynamic.
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