Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 23 blockchain investment and financing events around the world last week (11.25-12.1), with a total funding of over 150 million US dollars, which is an increase compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 8 investment and financing events, among which the stablecoin infrastructure project usdx.money announced the completion of US$45 million in financing, with a valuation of US$275 million;
- The Web3 game track announced two investment and financing events, among which Web3 game studio Qooverse announced the completion of the Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Paper Ventures;
- One investment and financing event was announced in the NFT field: Animoca Brands made a strategic investment in Igloo, Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins;
- The Infrastructure and Tools track announced 6 financings, among which the modular L1 network U2U Network completed a financing of US$13.8 million, with KuCoin Ventures and others participating in the investment;
- Other blockchain/crypto applications announced three financings, including prediction market BRKT.gg, which announced the completion of a $1.75 million seed round led by Foresight Ventures;
- The centralized financial sector announced three investment and financing events. Deutsche Bank joined Partior's $80 million Series B financing as a strategic investor (previously disclosed to have raised more than $60 million)
DeFi
Stablecoin infrastructure project usdx.money announced the completion of a $45 million financing, with a valuation of $275 million. Investors in this round include NGC, BAI Capital, Generative Ventures and UOB Venture Management, with some investments made in the form of warrants. Previous investors also include Dragonfly Capital and Jeneration Capital.
Trump family crypto project WLFI receives $30 million investment from Justin Sun
Sun Yuchen, founder of Tron, invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the DeFi project of US President-elect Trump, becoming the largest investor in the project. Sun Yuchen wrote on the X platform: "The United States is becoming a blockchain center, and the rise of Bitcoin is thanks to Trump." A WLFI spokesperson said in a statement: "There have been several major purchases in recent weeks, and we are confident of future success. More such developments are expected in the coming weeks and months."
Schuman Financial Completes $7.36 Million Seed Round, Led by RockawayX
Schuman Financial completed a $7.36 million seed round in September this year, led by RockawayX, with participation from Lightspeed Faction, Kraken Ventures, Nexo Ventures, Gnosis VC, Delta Blockchain Fund and Bankless Ventures. EURØP will be first issued on Ethereum and Polygon chains, and plans to integrate more blockchains and DeFi protocols in the future, while listing on major European crypto exchanges. The company will also build an ecosystem including SEPA integration, banking channels and custody cooperation with top global banks such as Societe Generale.
Crypto yield protocol developer Avant completes $6.5 million seed round
Avant, a developer of crypto yield protocols, announced the completion of a $6.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Superlayer, Avalaunch, GoGoPool, Daybreak Digital and Linda Kreitzman. Avant founder Rhett Shipp said the company focused on its existing network of contacts and angel investors rather than targeting well-known crypto venture capitalists; Avant was founded in June this year and began informal conversations with investors in May, but only officially started financing in October; this round of financing ended earlier this month, with a financing structure of a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), and Avant's post-financing valuation reached $25 million.
According to reports, Avant has issued a "stable value" token called avUSD, which can be pledged to obtain savUSD (the yield version of avUSD). The protocol runs on the Avalanche blockchain. Although avUSD itself does not generate income, it is designed to be used for various DeFi activities such as lending. By staking avUSD to obtain savUSD, you can earn income. According to the Avant website, the current annual yield (APY) of savUSD is 34%.
OpenTrade Completes $4 Million Seed Round Extension Financing, Led by AlbionVC
London-based fintech company OpenTrade announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of extended financing, led by AlbionVC, with participation from existing investors a16z Crypto and CMCC Global. The financing will be used to scale operations, enhance product functionality, and develop other services including yield products supported by new asset types. Since its inception at the end of 2022, OpenTrade has processed over $100 million in trading volume, providing clients including WOO X and Littio with stablecoin yield products based on real assets (such as U.S. Treasuries), with an annualized yield of 3%-6%, without the cost and complexity of returning funds to the traditional banking system.
Bleap Completes $2.3 Million Seed Round, Led by Ethereal Ventures
Bleap, a "blockchain bank account" founded by former Revolut employees Joao Alves and Guilherme Gomes, has completed a $2.3 million seed round of financing, led by Ethereal Ventures. Other participants include institutions such as Maven11, Alliance DAO, and executives from Revolut, Phantom, and OKX. After this round of financing, the company's valuation reached $10 million. Bleap is a self-custodial stablecoin payment application. Users can make stablecoin payments through a bound Mastercard card, enjoy zero conversion fees and up to 2% cashback. The application is based on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum, supports stablecoins such as USDC and USDT, and is scheduled to be fully launched in Q1 2025. Bleap provides decentralized finance (DeFi) income and fee-free global transfer services by combining blockchain technology with banking services. In addition, Bleap is registering as a Polish virtual asset service provider (VASP) and plans to launch its own token in 2026.
DeFi liquidity reactivation protocol Tren Finance completes seed round financing, with participation from Maven Capital and others
DeFi liquidity reactivation protocol Tren Finance announced the completion of its seed round of financing, with participation from Contango Digital Assets, Maven Capital, Moonrock Capital, OIG Capital, Spyre Capital and others. The specific amount of financing and valuation information have not been disclosed. It is reported that Tren Finance currently mainly provides liquidity proof and hooks to the community to support DeFi services such as re-hypothecation LP, money market deposits and re-pledge positions.
Vanilla Finance Completes Pre-Seed Round of Financing, Led by Paper Ventures and Others
Telegram ecosystem trading platform Vanilla Finance announced the completion of its Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Paper Ventures, UOB Ventures and ABCDE Labs, with participation from HTX Ventures, Ocular, Openspace, Y2 Ventures, Signum Capital and angel investors from projects such as STEPN and Scroll. The specific amount has not been disclosed. It is reported that Vanilla Finance intends to use the funds to expand the scope of market products, focus on deploying the digital economy in Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific, and provide localized services.
NFT
Animoca Brands makes strategic investment in Pudgy Penguins parent company Igloo, Inc.
Animoca Brands announced a strategic investment in Igloo, Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, demonstrating its confidence in the growth potential of the consumer crypto market and the NFT industry.
Web3 Games
Web3 game studio Qooverse completes Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Paper Ventures
Web3 game studio Qooverse announced the completion of its Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Paper Ventures, with participation from Animoca Brands, Merit Circle and a group of angel investors. The specific amount of financing has not yet been disclosed. It is reported that Qooverse was founded by a creative team that once worked at Tencent and Goldman Sachs. It is currently developing casual social games based on social platforms such as Telegram and is expected to launch the token TGE in early 2025.
Web3 ARPG blockchain game Runesoul completes $1 million seed round of financing, led by Accelbyte
Web3 ARPG blockchain game Runesoul announced that it has completed a $1 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $20 million. This round of financing was jointly invested by Accelbyte and IGC. Runesoul focuses on building an innovative Web3 ARPG gaming experience, aiming to combine the on-chain economic system with high-quality game content to attract global players and blockchain community users.
Infrastructure & Tools
Modular L1 network U2U Network completes $13.8 million financing
Modular L1 network U2U Network has completed a financing of US$13.8 million, with participation from KuCoin Ventures, Chain Capital, IDG Blockchain, Cointelegraph, V3V, JDI Ventures, Tesseract, IBG, Blockhive, Maxx Capital, UB Ventures, etc. The funds raised will support the continued development of U2U Network Subnet technology. According to reports, U2U Network is a Layer 1 blockchain that uses DAG technology and is compatible with EVM. U2U Network's innovative subnet technology enables developers to create scalable and flexible subnets, making it an ideal platform for efficient DePIN development. U2U Network is composed of former employees of 100 early contributors to Ethereum, Google, and Infina.
BNB Chain ecosystem re-pledge infrastructure Kernel announced that it has raised a total of US$10 million in multiple rounds of financing, with investors including Binance Labs, SCB Limited, Laser Digital, Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere, Draper Dragon, DACM, CYPHER, ArkStream Capital, HTX Ventures, Avid VC, GSR, Cluster Capital, Longhash Ventures, Via BTC, Side Door Ventures, NOIA and DWF Labs. According to reports, Kernel is a core re-pledge infrastructure project focused on BNB Chain. Kernel is about to launch the mainnet and will introduce KERNEL tokens to unify the governance and incentives of Kelp, Kernel and Gain, reward early supporters and promote the development of the ecosystem.
Talus Network Completes $6 Million Funding Led by Polychain Capital, Valuing $150 Million
High-throughput blockchain protocol Talus Network has completed a $6 million strategic financing led by Polychain Capital, with a valuation of $150 million. This round of financing also attracted investors such as Foresight Ventures, Animoca, Geek Cartel and Echo, as well as several well-known angel investors. The funds will be used to expand the Talus ecosystem, including Protochain, Nexus framework and "AI dating experience" application. Talus' total financing amount has reached $9 million.
Talus is committed to providing support for decentralized AI agents. The Talus Agents it developed can manage DeFi portfolios, DAO governance fund allocations, and in-game NPCs, and users can jointly own and trade these on-chain assets. In addition, the platform plans to launch TAI tokens to pay transaction fees and resource allocation. As an ecological case, Talus will launch the "AI Bae" application before the end of the year to provide users with personalized AI companions, generate exclusive virtual images by connecting to TikTok, and support chat, social gambling and tokenized interactions.
Rarimo Completes $2.5 Million Funding, Vitalik Buterin and Others Participate
Decentralized digital identity infrastructure Rarimo announced the completion of a $2.5 million Vision round of financing. Investors include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Celestia co-founder Nick White, Aztec co-founder Zac Williamson and Arnaud Schenk, and other leaders in the blockchain and zero-knowledge proof (ZK) fields. This round of financing aims to promote Rarimo's vision of fully decentralized digital identity, and will migrate to Ethereum Rollup in the first quarter of 2025 to improve accessibility. Rarimo's core technology ZK identity registry has been applied to many fields, including election voting and decentralized social graph construction. Vitalik Buterin said that Rarimo's packaging of existing identity authentication methods with ZK technology is an effective strategy to protect privacy and enhance trust.
SODA, the code-free Telegram mini-program launcher, receives Pre-Seed funding led by Gagra Ventures
SODA, a code-free Telegram applet launcher and cryptocurrency distribution infrastructure, announced the completion of a Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Gagra Ventures, with participation from Kenny Li (founder of Manta Network and p0x Labs), Marat Khichikov (Bitfury Group Managing Partner), Seb (founder of Sophon) and Omakase (early contributor to Sushiswap). The specific amount and valuation information have not been disclosed. SODA can support Memecoin developers to use Telegram as a distribution channel. It is expected to be launched in December 2024, initially supporting Solana, EVM and TON blockchains, and later plans to expand to Sui, Aptos, etc.
Lnfi Network Completes Pre-Seed Round of Financing, HashKey Capital and Others Participate
Lnfi Network (formerly NostrAssets) announced that it has completed the Pre-Seed round of financing, with HashKey Capital, UTXO Management, CMS Holdings, Waterdrip Capital, Wolf's Clothing and others participating. The specific amount and valuation information have not been disclosed. The new funds will support its expansion of the lightning and Bitcoin order book exchange LN Exchange to upgrade the lightning network from an instant payment protocol to a comprehensive financial ecosystem. According to previous news, Lnfi Network has released token economics, 60% of which is dedicated to the community and 10% is allocated to pre-launch transaction mining rewards and airdrops.
other
Prediction Market BRKT.gg Completes $1.75 Million Seed Round
Prediction market BRKT.gg announced the completion of a $1.75 million seed round of financing, led by Foresight Ventures, with participation from Orange DAO, V3V Ventures, MEXC Ventures, 280Capital, Triton Liquid Fund, Movement, Silvermine Capital and Nibiru Chain. According to reports, BRKT.gg is a decentralized prediction market driven by Movement. In less than 6 months, it has attracted more than 300,000 users.
Zuo'an Xinhui (Shanghai) Data Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zuo'an Xinhui") launched an RWA project in the agricultural field - the "Malu Grape RWA" project, and completed 10 million yuan in equity financing. It is reported that "Malu Grape" is one of the most representative agricultural product brands in Shanghai, with a development history of more than 40 years. In combination with the development of the "Malu Grape" industrial chain, the Shanghai Data Exchange, together with the Malu Town Economic Development Service Center, Zuo'an Xinhui, "Malu Grape" planting companies, as well as infrastructure service providers, information security service providers, law firms, accounting firms, asset appraisal companies and other digital companies, explored the innovative application of data elements. Among them, Zuo'an Xinhui, as the project operator, integrates agricultural products and agricultural product production data into project assets based on the core architecture of the SwiftLink management platform, and relies on the tradable and tradable attributes of the project operator's shares to ensure the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of information disclosure.
BSC Ecosystem Meme Coin Issuing Platform BabyGOUT Completes $500,000 Seed Round Financing, Led by Crypto Labs
BabyGOUT, a fair issuance platform for Meme coins based on the BSC public chain, announced the completion of a $500,000 seed round of financing, led by Crypto Labs and participated by Panther Capital. It is reported that BabyGOUT is a fair issuance platform for Meme coins based on the BSC public chain, where users can launch tokens that can be traded immediately without providing liquidity. In addition, BabyGOUT is the first ecological project of the BSC public chain MEMECoin GOUT community.
Centralized Finance
Deutsche Bank Joins Partior’s $80 Million Series B Round as a Strategic Investor
Partior, a Singaporean blockchain fintech company, announced that Deutsche Bank has joined its Series B financing as a strategic investor, with a total financing of US$80 million. Previously, Partior raised more than US$60 million in its Series B financing , led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from JP Morgan, Jump Trading, Standard Chartered Bank, Temasek and Valor Capital Group. With the support of Deutsche Bank, Partior plans to expand its cross-border settlement capabilities and develop features such as instant foreign exchange swaps and multi-bank payments. Deutsche Bank will join its platform as a euro and US dollar settlement bank and strengthen the capabilities of its recently launched dbX cross-border payment ecosystem. Since its establishment in 2021, Partior has processed more than US$1 billion in transactions. Its blockchain-based network provides real-time clearing and settlement services, simplifies global payment processes and improves transparency and efficiency.
Solana-based investment platform Margarita Finance completes $1 million Pre-Seed round of financing
Margarita Finance announced the completion of a $1 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from Tomahawk.VC, Outrun Ventures, G-20 Group, and N&V Capital. In addition, Margarita Finance has received funding from the Solana Foundation. According to reports, Margarita Finance is an investment platform built on the Solana blockchain, which introduces Wall Street-style structured products into the cryptocurrency world and provides returns through customizable "yield boosters." Users can choose their own crypto assets, lock-up periods, and target returns, and the platform uses option strategies to generate returns.
Crypto investment platform BitSave completes Pre-A round of financing, led by Leo Capital
BitSave, a Bangalore-based crypto investment platform, announced the completion of its Pre-A round of financing, led by Leo Capital. The specific amount of financing and valuation data have not been disclosed. Currently, its core service is to provide cryptocurrency index products for professionals and high net worth individuals (HNIs), mainly tracking the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index. The platform intends to use the new funds to support the demand for business licenses and plans to expand its crypto investment business to other Asian countries.
Investment institutions
Alchemy Launches $10 Million Grant Fund to Support Arbitrum Orbit Builders
Web3 development company Alchemy announced the launch of a $10 million grant fund for the Arbitrum Orbit chain. For builders who are launching the Orbit chain: Alchemy will provide each team with a credit line of up to $500,000, covering the entire infrastructure stack.
