Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 24 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (March 17-23), with a total funding amount of over US$336 million, a significant increase compared to the previous week. An overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 8 investment and financing events, among which Slingshot DAO successfully completed $16 million in financing, with investors including Dragonfly Capital;
- The Web3 gaming track announced three investment and financing events, among which the Web3 gaming platform Game Beast changed its name to Ephyra and completed a $10.5 million Series A financing led by BECKER Ventures;
- The Web3+AI field announced two investment and financing events, among which Pluralis Research has raised $7.6 million in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 8 investment and financing events, among which the decentralized data and identity protection platform Via Science completed a $28 million Series B financing;
- Other categories announced three investment and financing events, among which decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Yzi Labs
DeFi
Slingshot DAO Completes $16 Million Funding, SLING Tokens to Be Launched Soon
Slingshot DAO officially announced that the project has successfully completed $16 million in financing, with investors including Dragonfly Capital, Animoca Brands, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Sfermion, Standard Crypto, Sanctor Capital, Collab+Currency, Alphabit and other well-known Web3 institutions. In addition, Slingshot DAO revealed that the SLING token will be launched soon and hinted that trading will start soon.
Crypto-backed uranium spot market Uranium Digital raises $6.1 million led by Framework Ventures
Uranium Digital founder Alex Dolesky announced that the company has raised $6.1 million in seed funding to accelerate the creation of a uranium spot trading platform using crypto infrastructure. The financing was led by Framework Ventures. Uranium Digital plans to become the world's first institutional market for uranium, an important clean energy commodity, although the uranium market has not matured due to strict regulations and low demand. With the recovery of nuclear energy demand, Dolesky believes that the creation of an efficient and fast uranium spot market will attract more institutional investors.
Decentralized trading protocol Hibachi completes $5 million seed round of financing
Decentralized trading protocol Hibachi announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Dragonfly, Electric Capital and echo. According to reports, Hibachi is a decentralized trading protocol designed for professional traders, emphasizing provable security through zero-knowledge (zk) mathematics.
Stablecoin company Stable Sea completes $3.5 million financing, led by Kindred Ventures
Stablecoin-fiat solution provider Stable Sea announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing round led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Ludlow Ventures, DFS Lab, The Venture Dept. and The Fintech Fund. The funds will be used to further Stable Sea's mission of providing efficient, economical and compliant stablecoin withdrawal solutions.
Peregrine Exploration, the development company behind the stablecoin protocol Level, recently completed a new round of financing of US$2.6 million, led by Dragonfly Capital and participated by Polychain, bringing the total financing amount to US$6 million. New investors include Flowdesk, Echo Syndicates, Native Crypto, Feisty Collective, as well as Frax founder Sam Kazemian and Injective co-founder Albert Chon. Level's income-generating stablecoin lvlUSD has exceeded US$80 million in supply since the beta version was launched five months ago, and plans to include Morpho as a source of income while expanding the practicality of lvlUSD. Currently, users can mint lvlUSD by depositing USDC or USDT, and pledge it to earn income on DeFi protocols such as Aave, with an annualized yield of 8.3%, higher than some money market funds.
Manifest Finance, a tokenized real estate investment platform, has completed a $2.5 million financing round, led by VanEck, with participation from Lattice Fund, Compound and SALT Fund. According to reports, Manifest is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to invest in tokenized U.S. real estate assets. By leveraging blockchain technology, Manifest provides partial ownership opportunities, enabling investors to acquire real-world assets (RWA) with lower capital requirements and higher liquidity.
Lending agreement Exactly Protocol completes new round of financing of US$2 million
Exactly Protocol, a decentralized lending protocol based on the Ethereum mainnet, announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$2 million, bringing its total financing to US$5 million. The latest round of financing was participated by Bodhi Ventures, Newtopia, NXTP Ventures and Kaszek Ventures, as well as Synthetix founder Kain Warwick and Decentraland co-founder Esteban Ordano. It is reported that the Exactly Protocol team has developed an open source, non-custodial DeFi protocol that provides borrowers with floating and fixed interest rates. It plans to launch it on the Ethereum second-layer network Optimism in the next few months.
Solana Ecosystem Gold Tokenization Project ORO Completes $1.5 Million Pre-Seed Round of Financing
Solana Ecosystem Gold Tokenization Project ORO announced the completion of a $1.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by 468 Capital, with participation from investors such as Fasset, Dead King Ventures, and several angel investors. It is reported that ORO aims to expand the real-world assets that generate income on Solana through gold tokenization.
Web3 Games
Gamebeast rebrands to Ephyra and completes $10.5 million Series A funding
Web3 gaming platform Game Beast announced a brand upgrade and officially changed its name to Ephyra, and will focus on building a gaming ecosystem empowered by AI Agents. At the same time, Ephyra completed a $10.5 million Series A financing round, led by BECKER Ventures and participated by several Family Offices in the UAE and Hong Kong. The Ephyra ecosystem will launch a number of AI-driven gaming products and plans to launch a token TGE. More details will be announced in due course.
Mini game platform PlaysOut has completed a $7 million seed round of financing at a valuation of $70 million. OKX Ventures, KBW Ventures, and Pacific Century Group participated in the investment. This financing enables the company to focus on three key tasks: expanding its mini game ecosystem, securing strategic partnerships, and penetrating high-growth markets in the United States, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. It is reported that PlaysOut is a mini game platform that helps developers publish mini games on superAPP platforms such as Telegram, Discord, and YouTube by embedding infrastructure such as blockchain functions.
Kamigotchi, a blockchain game, completes $1.3 million seed round of financing
Kamigotchi, an on-chain game built on Initia’s Interwoven Stack, announced the completion of a $1.3 million seed round of financing from angel investors including Seed Club VC, TempleDAO and DCF God.
AI
AI-driven Metaverse Technology Platform Peer Completes $10.5 Million in New Round of Financing
Peer Global Inc. has completed a new round of financing of US$10.5 million, bringing its total investment to US$65.5 million. The financing was led by Tommy Mai's family office and will be used to expand Peer's development team, enhance its artificial intelligence capabilities, and improve its metaverse platform. According to reports, Peer is a technology platform that integrates artificial intelligence to create interactive digital environments. The company has launched a 3D personal planet that allows users to create and customize digital spaces for social interaction. Peer's metaverse engine provides developers with tools to build AI-generated digital environments. Peer's monetization strategy includes the sale of virtual property, which means that users can purchase and personalize digital spaces.
Pluralis Research Completes $7.6 Million Seed Round Led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures
Pluralis Research has raised $7.6 million in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures, with other investors including Topology, Variant, Eden Block, Bodhi Ventures and well-known crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan. Pluralis aims to challenge the dominance of large companies in the field of AI by providing computing power through a decentralized blockchain network. The company plans to use this funding to conduct research to see if AI models can be trained through distributed networks to avoid centralized computing resources. Founder Alexander Long, who worked as an AI engineer at Amazon, and his team are working to enable small companies to participate in the AI competition.
Infrastructure & Tools
The Walrus Foundation announced that it has successfully raised $140 million in funds, with Standard Crypto as the main investor, and other investors including a16z crypto, Electric Capital, Creditcoin, Lvna Capital, Protagonist, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Karatage, RW3 Ventures, Comma3 Ventures and The Raptor Group. The fundraising was completed through the sale of the Walrus protocol's cryptocurrency $WAL, and the total supply of the cryptocurrency is expected to be valued at $2 billion.
The Walrus protocol was developed by Mysten Labs, a company founded by former Meta employees and known for its high-speed blockchain Sui. Walrus aims to address the shortcomings of existing storage protocols in scalability, security, and flexibility by providing faster and cheaper decentralized storage. Although Walrus is still in the testing phase, Mysten Labs has built a website hosting service based on the protocol and plans to launch it on March 27.
Via Science, Inc. (VIA) has completed a $28 million Series B financing to accelerate the development of its data and identity protection platform for governments and enterprises. Investors in this round include Bosch Ventures (lead), BMW i Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and Sentinel Global. The new investors completed this minority equity investment together with Westly Group and some existing investors. It is reported that VIA's decentralized identity management combined with end-to-end quantum-resistant encryption technology can ensure access and privacy of authorized parties while achieving enterprise-level auditability and control. VIA claims that its decentralized, zero-trust architecture "has been rigorously tested by the US Department of Defense."
Crypto development platform Crossmint completes $23.6 million financing, led by Ribbit Capital
The crypto development platform Crossmint announced that it has completed a financing of US$23.6 million, covering seed rounds, Series A rounds and strategic financing, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, Lightspeed Faction and others. Crossmint provides API tools to help developers easily integrate cryptographic functions without having to deeply understand blockchain technology. Its current customers include 40,000 companies and developers such as Adidas, Red Bull, and Coinbase. Its stablecoin API and AI robot payment functions are very popular, with subscriptions growing by 1,100% in 2024. Crossmint plans to further expand the traditional financial and technology enterprise markets to form a differentiated layout with competitors such as Alchemy.
Web3 workflow protocol Halliday completes $20 million Series A financing, led by a16z crypto
Web3 workflow protocol developer Halliday announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing round, led by a16z crypto. Other investors include Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Credibly Neutral, Alt Layer and several angel investors, bringing its total financing to $26 million. Halliday is committed to simplifying the process of creating smart contracts, and its infrastructure allows developers to delegate workflows to automated systems to shorten development time. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its engineering team (currently 17 people) and further develop workflow protocols and payment applications Halliday Payments. Halliday CEO Griffin Dunaif said the company's goal is to bring blockchain into the software age, enabling developers to build applications in hours instead of years, and promote the use of secure AI systems in decentralized networks. Halliday was founded in April 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Digital asset wallet provider Utila completes $18 million Series A financing, led by Nyca Partners
Digital asset platform Utila has raised $18 million in Series A funding to expand its multi-party computation (MPC) wallet service to meet the growing demand for institutional digital asset management. Nyca Partners led the round, with participation from Wing VC, NFX, Haymaker Ventures, Gaingels, and Cerca Partners. The latest round brings the startup’s total venture capital to about $30 million since it emerged last year.
Crypto wallet infrastructure company Privy raises $15 million, led by Ribbit Capital
Blockchain infrastructure company Privy has raised $15 million in a new round of financing, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Coinbase. This financing brings Privy's total financing amount to more than $40 million. Privy provides companies with tools to connect crypto wallets with applications or websites, aiming to simplify the use of crypto wallets so that mainstream users can more easily enter the blockchain world. Privy plans to use the funds to double the size of its team in the next 18 months, currently serving about 50 million accounts and working with more than 1,000 companies.
Multi-party computing platform Stoffel MPC completes $1.6 million Pre-seed round of financing
Stoffel MPC, a privacy-focused multi-party computing platform, has completed a $1.6 million Pre-seed round of financing, led by Eterna Capital and Robot Ventures, with participation from several angel investors. According to reports, Stoffel is a platform designed to help developers build privacy-centric applications using multi-party computing (MPC) technology.
Austrian Bank Raiffeisen Bank Invests Millions of Euros in Crypto Tax Firm Blockpit
Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), through its venture capital arm Elevator Ventures, has invested millions of euros in Blockpit, an Austrian startup focused on the taxation of crypto assets. Blockpit, headquartered in Linz and led by CEO Florian Wimmer, recently announced that it had achieved profitability in 2024, making it an attractive target for investors seeking to profit from the growing demand for compliant crypto services. The amount of RBI's investment, as well as Blockpit's valuation, have not been disclosed. Blockpit was founded in 2017 and currently has 30 employees. In 2021, the company raised $10 million in a Series A round led by MiddleGame Ventures. In November 2023, Blockpit also acquired Swiss competitor Accointing in a multi-million euro deal, following its merger with German competitor CryptoTax in 2020.
other
Prediction Platform:
Crypto prediction platform Yeet completes $7.75 million in financing, led by Dragonfly
Crypto prediction platform Yeet has completed a $7.75 million financing, led by Dragonfly, with participation from angel investors such as Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz and LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino. It is reported that Yeet was co-founded by Michael Anderson (alias Mando), a well-known figure in the crypto field, anonymous trader Keyboard Monkey and professional poker player Ben Lamb, focusing on the "prediction market for crypto users" and targeting crypto native groups with high risk preferences.
Decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs announced that it had completed a $5 million seed round of financing earlier, led by Yzi Labs. Other investors include angel investment community Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, etc.
E-commerce:
The decentralized business network Domin Network announced that it has received strategic investment from Animoca Brands, KuCoin Labs, Web3Labs.club, IBC Group Official, DWF Ventures, Presto, Outlier Ventures, KnightFury, ThreeDAO, Awakening Ventures and AB DAO. According to reports, Domin Network is a decentralized business network that uses NFT and DePIN Rollup technology to connect software, hardware and consumer behavior data to the chain. It enables users to earn crypto rewards by sharing their consumption data.
