Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 27 blockchain investment and financing events around the world last week (December 9-15), with a total funding amount of over US$540 million. This is a significant increase compared to the previous week. An overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 10 investment and financing events, among which Bitcoin trading and self-custody application Relai completed a $12 million Series A financing;
- The Web3 game track announced one investment and financing event. The decentralized trading card game Fantasy.Top completed a $4.25 million seed round of financing led by Dragonfly;
- Four investment and financing events were announced in the AI field, among which crypto AI startup Exabits completed a $15 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC;
- The Infrastructure & Tools track announced 6 investment and financing events, among which Avalanche raised $250 million through a private token sale;
- In other blockchain/crypto applications, three investment and financing events were announced, among which Solana ecological tokenization platform AgriDex completed a strategic financing of US$4 million, led by Portal Ventures;
- The centralized financial sector announced two investment and financing events, among which Web3 banking service provider Klickl announced the completion of an oversubscribed $25 million Series A financing
DeFi
Bitcoin trading and self-custody application Relai completes $12 million Series A financing
Relai, a Bitcoin trading and self-custody application, has completed a $12 million Series A financing, and plans to expand into the European market and apply for a MICA (Crypto Asset Market) regulatory license. This round of financing was led by Ego Death Capital, a venture capital firm focused on Bitcoin, which contributed $4 million, and Plan B Bitcoin Fund, Timechain and Solit Group participated in the investment. Relai is headquartered in Switzerland, and its "non-custodial" model is popular, with cumulative downloads of the application exceeding 400,000 times. Co-founder and CEO Julian Liniger said that the new funds will significantly promote the company's growth and help more European users understand and access Bitcoin.
Lava has completed a $10 million Series A financing led by Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund, providing users with the service of borrowing dollars with Bitcoin as collateral, with the slogan "Save with Bitcoin, Spend with Dollars". This round of financing was supported by Keith Rabois, Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, Jon Chu and Joey Krug. Lava's core innovation is to allow users to "self-custody" assets, avoiding the platform holding Bitcoin, so as to reduce the possibility of bankruptcy of platforms such as Genesis, BlockFi and Celsius due to overlapping risks. In addition, Lava emphasizes risk resistance and does not issue tokens. The Series A financing is pure equity financing.
Stablecoin-driven financial platform KAST has completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Peak XV and HongShan. It is reported that Peak XV and HongShan are Indian and Chinese investment companies that were spun off from investment giant Sequoia last year. Partners from DST Global and Goodwater Capital also participated in this round of investment. The company plans to launch savings products and expand remittance services while continuing to focus on stablecoin-based infrastructure. According to reports, KAST is a stablecoin-driven financial platform targeting emerging markets that allows customers to hold and spend stablecoins through traditional payment channels. KAST also issued credit cards that can be used in a standard merchant network, enabling users to spend their stablecoins at merchants that do not support crypto transactions. KAST declined to disclose the number of users or valuation, but said its growth exceeded expectations in the first four months of operation.
DeFi platform SMARDEX completes $4.5 million seed round of financing
DeFi platform SMARDEX announced the completion of a $4.5 million seed round of financing. The financing was carried out through the public sale of its sub-token sUSDN for its protocol governance. It also disclosed that RA2 TECH had previously invested $12 million in the development of SMARDEX. In addition, SMARDEX announced the launch of a synthetic dollar token USDN, and a supporting Delta Neutral strategy, which ensures that those who short ETH by minting USDN are always balanced with those who are long ETH within the SMARDEX platform. This is controlled by smart contracts to ensure that positions always have equal weight. According to reports, SmarDex is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that uses an innovative automated market maker (AMM) algorithm to address impermanent losses and potentially convert them into impermanent gains. SmarDex operates across multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Base.
Neptune Protocol Completes $3.9 Million Seed Round with Animoca Ventures and Other Investors
Neptune Protocol announced the completion of a $3.9 million seed round of financing, with investors including Bloccelerate, Animoca Ventures, CMS Holdings, Maelstrom, Veil VC, Builder Capital, Infinity Ventures, RockTree Capital, Wise3 Ventures, Stake Capital, Optic Capital and Relayer Capital, as well as angel investors Meltem Demirors and Kartik Talwar. The funds will be used to launch the Eclipse ecosystem's over-collateralized native stablecoin USDN based on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), and support protocol security audits and team expansion. USDN aims to improve capital efficiency through a decentralized lending model, and the mainnet is expected to be launched in the fourth quarter.
DeFi protocol Spicenet completes $3.4 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC and others
DeFi protocol Spicenet announced the completion of a $3.4 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC and Magnus Capital, with participation from TPC Ventures, Public Works, WAGMI Ventures, DoraHacks, P-OPS Team, The Rollup Ventures, and multiple angel investors. According to reports, Spicenet is a unified, composable liquidity layer, and its underlying technology is Celestia. The protocol integrates solutions and market makers into one network and allows two forms of liquidity to be provided from other chains without bridging assets to Spicenet. Its unified margin system improves capital efficiency. Spicenet is about to launch its private testnet, and the final bug fixes are in progress.
Decentralized derivatives protocol Symmio announced that it has completed $3.1 million in financing, of which Spartan Group, Orbs, MCLB and Blockchain Founders Fund and other investment institutions invested about $2.1 million in it. MS2 Capital, GMoney and Prime Ventures are early investors of the company. Symmio is an intention-centric derivatives clearing layer that aims to solve the liquidity and fragmentation problems of DeFi. It currently supports four networks: Arbitrum, Base, BSC and Mantle. The project revealed that it plans to launch the token TGE on December 16 to launch the token on the Base blockchain. The initial liquidity will be provided through the SYMM/ETH trading pair on Aerodrome Finance.
Anna Yuan, founder of Perena and former head of stablecoins at the Solana Foundation, announced the creation of Perena, a stablecoin trading infrastructure project, and raised about $3 million in a pre-seed round of financing led by Borderless Capital. Perena's goal is not to launch a new stablecoin, but to build an on-chain system to provide efficient trading liquidity support for the issuance of emerging stablecoins. Yuan said that Perena hopes to become a "neutral layer" to support stablecoin issuers and solve the current liquidity dispersion problem among multiple stablecoins. Perena plans to establish an exchange pool similar to Ethereum Curve 3pool on Solana, supporting fast exchanges of up to seven stablecoins and providing stablecoin holders with the opportunity to earn additional income by borrowing assets. In addition, Perena also plans to develop a "synthetic currency" based on collateralized debt positions (CDPs) to provide a more resilient solution than traditional fiat currencies through stablecoin support.
Superform receives $3 million in funding led by VanEck Ventures
Superform Labs has completed a $3 million strategic financing led by VanEck Ventures, with a total financing amount of $9.5 million. This financing will support its launch of SuperVaults, which focuses on optimizing on-chain yield management, simplifying user experience, and ensuring fund security. The first product, SuperUSDC, has been launched. The USDC stablecoin yield vault on the Ethereum chain allows users to maximize passive income through a single transaction. In addition, SuperUSDC will expand to other chains to provide users with more high-yield opportunities.
Yei Finance, a decentralized lending protocol, announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Manifold, with participation from DWF Ventures, Kronos Research, Outlier Ventures, Side Door Ventures and WOO. In addition, it has received support from Sei Foundation, Gauntlet angel investors, Scallop CMO 0xZHUANG and other industry veterans. Yei Finance is the leading decentralized lending protocol in the Sei ecosystem, committed to reducing risks through modular design. Since the launch of the main network Yei v1, the protocol has developed rapidly, with a total locked volume (TVL) exceeding $130 million within three months, and has established strategic partnerships with industry-leading projects and teams such as LayerZero, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, Stargate, Elixir and Frax. The new funds will be used to promote the research and development and optimization of cross-chain lending protocols, further improve capital efficiency and expand the market.
Web3 Games
Fantasy.Top, a decentralized trading card game powered by Blast, has announced the launch of the second iteration of the platform, Fantasy V2, and has completed a $4.25 million seed round of financing led by Dragonfly and supported by Manifold Ventures. The new capital will be used to improve Fantasy's main products and will help it expand into the wider social media field. According to reports, Fantasy.Top is a SocialFi collectible card game (TCG) launched on the Blast mainnet on May 1 by its creator, who goes by the pseudonym Travis Bickle. Fantasy.Top has stated that its goal is to become the ultimate financial infrastructure for online creators to monetize their content on a large scale.
AI
Crypto AI startup Exabits completes $15 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC
Crypto AI startup Exabits has completed a $15 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $150 million, led by Hack VC, and several other investors also participated, but the specific names were not disclosed. Exabits co-founder Hoansoo Lee said that Exabits began financing in July this year and completed this round of financing in October. He declined to comment on the structure of this round of financing, but said that tokens will be launched in the future. This seed round of financing brings Exabits' total financing to $20 million. According to reports, Exabits is a crypto AI startup focusing on GPU tokenization. The company previously conducted an undisclosed round of Pre-Seed financing, followed by an undisclosed round of strategic financing led by Portal Ventures. The total amount of these two rounds of financing is approximately US$5 million.
Hyperbolic Completes $12 Million Series A Funding, Led by Polychain Capital and Variant
Hyperbolic, an open AI cloud service provider, announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing round led by Polychain Capital and Variant, with participation from IOSG Ventures, Wintermute, GSR, Chapter One, Bankless Ventures and Faction. Hyperbolic Labs is an open AI cloud platform that focuses on providing GPU resources and AI services.
Web3 AI agent project ChainAware.ai completes new round of financing, led by ChainGPT Labs
Web3 AI agent project ChainAware.ai announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by ChainGPT Labs and participated by coinix. The specific investment amount and valuation information have not been disclosed. The new funds are intended to be used to support its fraud detection and wallet behavior evaluation on Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain and TON networks to provide predictive analysis to enhance Web3 security and user engagement.
AI-driven data security solution Privasea completes new round of financing, with participation from Lunar Labs Capital
Privasea, supported by Binance Labs, has completed a new round of financing, with Lunar Labs Capital participating. The specific investment amount has not been disclosed. Privasea has previously received investments from OKX Ventures and others to support its construction of an AI-driven FHEML solution, which provides scalable computing resources for AI tasks by establishing a decentralized computing network.
Infrastructure & Tools
Avalanche raises $250 million from Galaxy, other investors
Although the Avalanche Foundation holds about $3 billion worth of AVAX tokens, it still raised $250 million in a private token sale led by Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital, with participation from more than 40 other firms, including SkyBridge and Morgan Creek Digital.
Hengfeng International completes $100 million financing to build Web3 ecosystem FO-X
According to The Block, Hengfeng International announced the completion of a $100 million financing, of which Chairman Qian Fenglei personally invested $50 million, and the remaining funds came from 50 investors. This round of financing will be used to build the Web3 ecosystem FO-X (fo.com), and the first product is the instant messaging software FoChat, which is positioned as a Web3 investment exchange platform for ordinary users. The FO-X project has formed a team of top talents in IT technology and finance, with members from well-known listed companies and Wall Street in the United States. FoChat will integrate encryption technology with AI agents to provide 24/7 news information, asset management tools and other functions, including wallet address monitoring, capital flow analysis and smart contract security testing. The platform will help users understand blockchain technology through gamification tasks and promises to introduce a community autonomy (DAO) mechanism.
Smart contract platform Waterfall Network completes $11.6 million in new round of financing
Smart contract platform Waterfall Network announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$11.6 million, with participation from Bolt's Capital, Alpha Token Capital and Enflux, providing it with funds to advance its research and development. The new funds will be used to strengthen the platform's infrastructure, simplify nodes and make further improvements. It is reported that Waterfall Protocol, launched in July 2024, is a Layer1, scalable, decentralized smart contract platform developed by software development company BlueWave based on DAG technology and fast final PoS consensus. It is designed for the development of Dapps and aims to provide scalability, security and a truly decentralized governance platform while being compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Blockchain startup Commonware has completed a $9 million financing round, led by Haun Ventures and Dragonfly Capital, and has received funding from many well-known cryptocurrency developers, including Smokey the Bera of BeraChain, Zaki Manian of Cosmos, Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, Dan Romero of Farcaster, and Mert Mumtaz of Helius. According to reports, Commonware was founded by Patrick O'Grady, former vice president of engineering at Ava Labs, and provides "anti-framework" tools to provide developers with highly customized blockchain building blocks. Commonware has released a number of tools, including the consensus mechanism Simplex Consensus, which aims to go beyond the limitations of traditional frameworks and provide more efficient solutions for developers and users.
CAT Labs, a crypto asset forensics and cybersecurity company, has completed a $5.4 million seed round of financing. M13 led the investment, with participation from existing investors such as Castle Island Ventures, CMT Digital and Hash3. This round of financing brings the company's total financing to $9.7 million. According to reports, Cat Labs was founded last year and is a startup company that fights crypto crimes, focusing on digital asset recovery and cybersecurity: helping to recover cryptocurrency assets from digital evidence (such as hackers' computers or mobile phones), and preventing digital asset theft and protecting user infrastructure architecture. The company currently has 14 employees; according to the company, the team has collectively assisted in the dismantling of more than 300 criminal entities during their careers.
Layer1 blockchain Mandala Chain completes $1 million Pre-Seed round of financing
Layer1 blockchain Mandala Chain announced the completion of a $1 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Harbour Industrial Capital, with participation from O-DE Capital, NLS Ventures and strategic Polkadot ecosystem partners. The funding will enable Mandala Chain to scale its business, establish strategic partnerships and expand its influence in emerging markets. According to reports, Mandala Chain is a blockchain platform that enables government and enterprise applications to seamlessly integrate with public and retail applications. It is a network designed to fill the gap between the emerging blockchain market and the global blockchain market, with its first application scenario in Indonesia.
other
Crypto Mining:
Decentralized protocol Prosper completes strategic financing
The decentralized protocol Prosper acquired 7,000 ASIC mining machines from BITMAIN, with a total computing power of 1 EH/s (of which 250 PH/s are already online), and completed strategic financing. Partners include Metalpha, BIT Mining, Animoca Brands, etc. Prosper improves the efficiency of DAO governance by tokenizing institutional-level computing power as on-chain assets, distributes Bitcoin rewards to $PROS holders, and plans to entrust 200+ BTC to activate the locked volume (TVL). The future goal is to add 5 EH/s computing power, expand ecosystem cooperation, and create a leading decentralized Bitcoin mining protocol.
RWA:
Solana Ecosystem Tokenization Platform AgriDex Completes $4 Million Strategic Financing
Solana Ecosystem Tokenization Platform AgriDex has completed a $4 million strategic financing, led by Portal Ventures, with participation from Endeavour Ventures, Hawkwood Capital, HU Investments, FS Ventures, and Sycamore Gap Management Ltd. Company. Angel investors participating in this round of financing include Tobechi Bolanle Taiwo of Palantir, Anna Yuan of Perena, Crypto Rand, and Michaël van de Poppe. This round of financing consists of a mix of equity and tokens, and AgriDex is valued at $28.5 million. According to reports, AgriDex is a Solana-based tokenization platform focused on agricultural products. After this round of financing, AgriDex plans to tokenize $4.5 billion in trade commitments and expand to new commodity areas such as cocoa in West Africa and wheat in Eastern Europe, while working with Plume Network to provide trade finance loans to support agricultural orders.
Tokenization company Uranium Digital completes $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing
Tokenization company Uranium Digital announced the completion of a $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Portal Ventures, with participation from Framework Ventures and Karatage, as well as multiple angel investors. According to reports, Uranium Digital is a startup focused on the uranium market through tokenization. The company uses blockchain tokens to represent uranium ore, enabling seamless transactions in this previously underfunded and heavily regulated field. Tokens simplify the transaction process, while the underlying uranium remains securely stored, and its physical delivery is limited to licensed buyers.
DePIN
DePIN project Soarchain completes $4.5 million in financing
DePIN project Soarchain announced the completion of a $4.5 million financing, with Taisu Ventures, BlockBuilders, Hyperithm, Plug and Play, Alpha Ventures, QC Ventures, Chorus One, Cogitent Ventures, Evo Labs, and Elevate Ventures participating. It is reported that Soarchain is a DePIN project that combines artificial intelligence and modularity. Soarchain integrates users' cars into a secure real-time data network to provide support for advanced applications that improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
Centralized Finance
Klickl, a UAE-based Web3 banking service provider, announced the completion of an oversubscribed $25 million Series A round of financing, which valued the company at $125 million. The round was co-led by Web3Port Foundation and Aptos Labs, with other investors including Summer Ventures, Heritage Horizon Capital, V2 Capital, etc.
Klickl plans to use this round of financing to accelerate the development of global Web3 banking and launch Klickl Labs and Klickl Foundation in the fourth quarter of 2024. As a strategic partner, Web3Port Foundation will support Klickl's expansion through its investment and acceleration platform and promote the large-scale application of Web3 technology. In addition, Aptos Labs also provides technical support for Klickl with its Layer 1 blockchain technology.
Cross-border crypto payment company Sphere has completed a $5 million round of financing led by Coinbase Ventures and Kraken Ventures. The company plans to use the latest round of financing to further invest in regulatory compliance and risk management functions. According to reports, founders Arnold Lee and Luigi Charles founded Sphere in 2022 with the aim of creating a "crypto version of Stripe." Stripe is a cross-border payment company that handles fiat currency transactions. Sphere integrates with global fintech companies and licensed currency exchange services to enable businesses to use stablecoins to transfer funds between countries.
Investment institutions
Beam Ventures to launch first $150 million gaming-focused fund in Abu Dhabi
Beam Foundation announced that it will launch Beam Ventures, the first venture fund focused on the gaming sector in Abu Dhabi, with a fund size of US$150 million, aiming to accelerate the development of promising founders’ projects and promote Abu Dhabi as a global gaming hub.
The fund plans to attract top talent through its accelerator program, support the development of early-stage Web3 gaming and AI startups, and help Abu Dhabi build a thriving gaming ecosystem.
Topology Ventures raises $75 million to invest in AI, decentralized networks and other technologies
Former Google engineer Casey Caruso founded the crypto venture capital fund Topology Ventures, which has raised $75 million. The fund will invest in cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, neurotechnology, aerospace, and robotics.
Cendana Capital and Accolade Partners are the lead investors in the fund, which has tripled its original target. Other limited partners include Marc Andreessen of a16z, Bob Goodman, managing partner of Bessemer, Ethan Kurzweil, a former member of Bessemer who now owns the Chemistry Fund, co-founder of OpenAI and co-author of GPT-4, and Paris Hilton.
Galxe Launches Gravity EVM Upgrade and Establishes $50 Million Ecosystem Fund
Web3 identity authentication and rewards platform Galxe announced a new Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) upgrade for its Gravity blockchain and established a $50 million fund to support the development of the network ecosystem. Galxe co-founder Charles Wayn said that the $50 million fund is intended to encourage development activities on its recently launched Gravity network, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 network designed to help developers launch new user-centric applications and even subsidiary blockchains. Wayn also said that Galxe has provided an additional $5 million in developer funding for the network. The ecosystem fund is backed by venture capital firms including HashKey Capital, DAO5, and Lattice.
DWF Labs announces $20 million AI Agent Fund
DWF Labs announced the launch of a $20 million fund focused on supporting the development of autonomous AI agents. The program aims to promote Web3 projects and develop next-generation AI agent solutions with the potential to transform industries and redefine the digital economy. Eligible projects will receive comprehensive support, including up to $100,000 in cloud server credits, to accelerate their growth and adoption.
