Written by: TechFlow
According to Rootdata data, in October 2023, Web3 companies received 75 investments with a total investment of approximately US$427 million, a new low since October 2022. Compared with US$535 million in September, the total amount of financing funds decreased by approximately 20.19%.
The top ten projects in terms of financing amount in October are:
Animoca Brands ($50 million);
Web3 security startup Blockaid ($33 million);
Derivatives DEX SynFutures ($22 million);
Neon Machine, developer of blockchain game Shrapnel ($20 million);
Cryptocurrency trading and lending platform Membrane ($20 million);
NFT project Memeland ($15.67 million);
RWA lending platform Untangled Finance ($13.5 million);
Cryptocurrency startup smlXL ($13.4 million);
EkuboProtocol, the next-generation AMM on Starknet ($12 million);
Video game platform Forge ($11 million).
What projects do we think are interesting?
Neon Machine (Shrapnel)
Introduction: Neon Machine is a game studio based in Seattle. In October, it announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing. It will use this round of financing to further develop the shooting game Shrapnel, and plans to release an early access version in December this year and fully release the game in 2024.
Shrapnel chose to be developed on the Avalanche subnet.
Investors: Polychain Capital, Griffin Gaming Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Franklin Templeton, IOSG Ventures, and Tess Ventures participated in the investment.
Highlights:
1. The team was spun off from the well-known company HBO Interactive in 2014. It has participated in the production of more than 30 well-known games and movies such as "Halo", "Call of Duty", and "Madden NFL", and has won more than 40 entertainment awards.
2. Token economy is widely used: for example, it is used to publish player-created content (PCC). All PCC on the platform will be published on the chain using SHRAP tokens as NFT items. SHRAP tokens are not only in-game currency, but also the key to community participation.
3. Their operators will appear in their upcoming independent comic series, which is one of the ways to build the brand and IP.
Nocturne Labs
Introduction: Nocturne is a protocol that supports private Ethereum accounts with built-in asset privacy features. Using a combination of account abstraction and zero-knowledge proof, Nocturne has built a private account layer that enables users to send, receive and trade their funds without exposing their addresses. It has completed a $6 million seed round of financing.
Investment institutions: Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital jointly led the investment, with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Bankless Ventures, Hack VC, Robot Ventures and others.
Highlights:
1. Build private user accounts directly on L1/L2 and be compatible with existing Ethereum accounts.
2. As account abstraction makes wallets easier to use and helps Web3 wallets attract more users, there is a demand for privacy, especially when it comes to on-chain transactions and gambling.
3. Investment recognition from Vitalik Buterin.
Noble
Introduction: A dedicated blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem, designed for the issuance of native assets in the Cosmos ecosystem. In addition, real-world assets (RWA) can be tokenized and issued.
Investment institutions: Polychain Capital led the investment, with participation from Borderless Capital, Circle Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and others.
Highlights:
1. Circle is the first issuer to launch its $USDC stablecoin on Noble;
2. Noble supports IBC, so it can connect to more than 50 other IBC Appchains in Cosmos;
3. Team Noble is made up of the most respected OG in Cosmos (Zaki, Jelena, Jack, Stefan).
Recommended reading: Noble: Cosmos infrastructure for native universal assets and RWA issuance
Virtual Labs
Introduction: They are a startup focused on developing ZK technology, mainly in the field of ZK state channels, aiming to use this technology to eliminate gas fees and simplify wallet interactions, thereby enhancing the user experience in the Web3 ecosystem. Their solutions (such as Virtual Rollups) provide the ability to trade with 0 gas fees, instant processing, and seamless functionality across different blockchain networks. In October, they announced a $1.2 million financing.
Investment institutions: OP Crypto led the investment, with participation from Byzantine Marine, Koyamaki Ventures, NEAR Foundation and several individual angel investors.
Highlights:
1. The company’s flagship product, Virtual Rollup, the so-called “ZK state channel,” allows games, social platforms, and loyalty point providers to connect and bundle unlimited transactions and unlimited players without trust;
2. Supported by Binance Incubation Program;
3. They worked with Winner to eliminate gas fees and delays for more than 90% of on-chain betting, and plan to improve more on-chain betting/casino-based protocols.
MyShell
Introduction: MyShell is an AI platform based on opBNB that allows users to create chatbots called "Shells". This Web3-centric artificial intelligence project provides services for content creators and users. In October, MyShell announced the completion of a $5.6 million seed round of financing, with a valuation of $57 million.
Investment institutions: INCE Capital led the investment, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, SevenX Ventures, OP Crypto and others.
Highlights:
1. Currently, I have used AI chat tools with high practicality, which can be used for English learning and direct TO C.
2. Token economics will continue to evolve to match its development positioning from applications to data and computing.
The following are the financing details of each track:
DEFI
Solana ecosystem DEX Convergence has completed a $2.5 million pre-seed round of financing with a valuation of $30 million, led by C² Ventures, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Israel Blockchain Association, Auros Global, etc. Convergence RFQ will support spot and derivatives trading, is expected to be launched in early November, and hopes to expand to Arbitrum. In addition, Convergence RFQ has set the trading code symbol of its governance token to CVG.
Accumulated Finance, a liquidity staking ecosystem integrated with Curve, has completed a new round of private equity financing. Curve, De Facto Capital, Stake DAO and others participated in the investment. The Accumulated Finance team announced in August this year that it will launch the Accumulated Finance V2 protocol, which can provide incentive liquidity staking and DeFi pools for proof-of-stake protocols with medium and low market capitalizations. The protocol will be based on ACFI token governance and is expected to be officially launched in early 2024.
Arbitrum ecosystem DeFi derivatives lending platform ParaFinance completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by OKX Ventures, with participation from Uniswap Labs, Gate Labs and Kosmos Ventures.
AirDAO received a $7.5 million investment from DWF Labs. The investment plan is divided into a one-year cliff period and a 36-month vesting plan, aiming to increase the adoption of the AirDAO ecosystem.
The first RWA perpetual DEX Ostium Labs has completed $3.5 million in financing, with participation from General Catalyst, LocalGlobe, SIG, Balaji Srinivasan and Alliance, and will launch the Arbitrum testnet in Q4. Ostium Labs aims to attract traditional commodity traders and cryptocurrency native traders by providing transparent and flexible alternatives for trading assets such as oil, Bitcoin, and foreign exchange pairs.
RWA lending platform Untangled Finance has completed $13.5 million in financing and is online on the Celo network. It plans to expand to Ethereum and Polygon through the Chainlink cross-chain interoperability protocol. Untangled aims to bring traditional private credit markets to the blockchain through tokenization, focusing on fintech (such as invoice financing and consumer loans based on wage advances) and "green asset" loans. The platform provides infrastructure to host blockchain-based credit pools, where investors deposit funds to lend and earn returns. Depositors receive ERC-20 tokens representing their positions.
Membrane, a cryptocurrency trading and lending platform, has completed a $20 million Series A financing round, with participation from QCP Capital, Electric Capital, Jump Crypto, GSR Markets and Framework Ventures. The company initially built a settlement and settlement engine that enables institutions to choose where and how to custody funds, and then decide where and how to execute transactions through the front end.
DeFi protocol Elixir has completed a $7.5 million Series A financing round at a valuation of $100 million, led by Hack VC, with participation from NGC Ventures, AngelList Ventures, etc. Elixir allows users to provide liquidity directly to trading pairs on order book exchanges and receive market making rewards with a risk-return profile similar to AMMs. Elixir's delegated proof-of-stake protocol is expected to be launched on the mainnet in the coming weeks and integrated with decentralized exchanges such as Vertex, Bluefin, and WooFi. Elixir also plans to support permissionless market functions on dYdX V4 in early 2024.
Singapore derivatives DEX SynFutures has completed a $22 million Series B financing round, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from HashKey Capital, SIG DT Investments, and others. It has also launched a new version of the platform, V3, on the Ethereum testnet. The mainnet is expected to go live later this year or early next year. SynFutures is open to the idea of launching native tokens in the future. SynFutures said it has developed a proprietary automated market maker model called Oyster for its V3 platform, which combines the best order book and AMM models.
Tarun Chitra, founder of DeFi risk manager Gauntlet, has raised $8 million in funding from Bain Capital Crypto and Jump Trading. The company aims to help DAOs manage their finances without sacrificing the principle of decentralization, providing them with crowdsourced portfolio management advice.
The next-generation AMM EkuboProtocol on Starknet has completed a $12 million financing, with Uniswap Labs participating in the investment. Uniswap invested 3 million UNI (about $12 million) in exchange for 20% of the future Ekubo protocol governance tokens.
Surf Protocol, a permissionless derivatives exchange, has completed a $3 million financing round, led by ABCDE Capital, with participation from OP Crypto and C2 Ventures. The financing will be used to develop a permissionless Perp DEX based on the Base network. Surf Protocol aims to provide users with a richer range of tradable Perp assets while reducing user trading friction. The compatible liquidity provision framework created by Surf Protocol, with its unique AMM structure, provides liquidity providers (LPs) with more options to balance returns and risks.
L1&L2
Initia, the Cosmos Ecosystem Move L1 project, has received investment from Binance Labs. The funds raised have not been disclosed yet. The funds raised will be used to develop Initia infrastructure and developer tools. Initia's architecture enables L2 to utilize EVM, WasmVM or MoveVM while facilitating seamless messaging and bridging between them. The project is still in the development stage on the testnet.
NASD, the developer of the Cosmos ecosystem application chain Noble, has completed a $3.3 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Borderless Capital, Circle Ventures, and Wintermute Ventures. Noble will become the first non-EVM blockchain supported by Circle's CCTP. Noble is an application chain built specifically for the issuance of native assets for the Cosmos and IBC ecosystems, and its mainnet was launched on March 27.
game
NexGami, a GameFi platform that combines traditional games with Web3.0, has completed a $2 million seed round of financing, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Fundamental Labs, and Ledger Capital, with a post-investment valuation of $20 million. NexGami is committed to providing seamless integration solutions for gaming products and enhancing the gaming experience of users within the Polygon network, bringing non-circle game users into the GameFi ecosystem.
Game of Silks, a fantasy horse racing startup driven by NFT, has completed a $5 million financing round, with participation from Duncan Taylor and others. Game of Silks issues NFTs related to thoroughbred horses, and its owners can receive rewards based on the performance of the horses corresponding to the NFTs in the real world. The company was founded in June 2021 and works with organizations such as the New York Racing Association, Belmont Racecourse, the Jockey Club, and Americas Best Racing under Fox Sports.
Animoca Brands subsidiary Darewise has completed a $3.5 million private round of financing, with participation from Gamefi Ventures, London Real Ventures, Citizen Capital, Blocore, Animoca Ventures, and Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu. Darewise will launch the first Metaverse ecosystem token based on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is expected to be launched in early 2024 with the support of Horizen Labs, ApeCoin's strategic technology provider.
Video game platform Forge has completed US$11 million in seed round financing, led by Makers Fund, BITKRAFT Ventures and Animoca Brands, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Polygon Ventures, Formless Capital and Adaverse, and opened the beta version to players.
Upland, a metaverse game developed on EOS, has completed a $7 million Series A+ round of financing, led by EOS Network Ventures, with participation from Animoca Brands and C3 Venture Capital, and plans to launch tokens on Ethereum. This round of financing will be used to add game features to support players to purchase digital land on real-world maps.
Third Time, the parent company of the Solana-based horse racing game Photo Finish LIVE, has raised $2 million in seed funding, led by Sfermion, with participation from Reciprocal Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, 32-Bit Ventures, and 6th Man Ventures. Third Time was launched this year.
The gaming platform HYTOPIA (formerly NFT Worlds) has completed a $3 million financing round, led by Delphi Digital, with participation from several VCs and angel investors, and is about to launch a public beta. HYTOPIA integrates social functions to provide developers with a game creation toolkit inspired by Minecraft with flexible monetization. HYTOPIA is building a transparent and open monetization layer, which is supported by its own L2 blockchain and TOPIA.
Neon Machine, the developer of blockchain game Shrapnel, has completed a $20 million Series A financing round, led by Polychain, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Franklin Templeton, IOSG Ventures, etc. The funds from this round of financing will be used to further develop its shooting game "Shrapnel" at a critical moment. The game team is preparing to release an early access version in December and then a full release sometime in 2024.
Web3 game studio Moonveil Entertainment has raised $5.4 million in seed funding, led by Gumi Cryptos Capital and Arcane Group, with participation from LongHash Ventures, IOSG, and Infinity Venture Crypto. Moonveil Entertainment’s first game, Astrark: STAGE ONE, is an immersive tower defense mobile game centered around PvP and PVE combat and multiplayer cooperative experiences. The second game is a multiplayer strategy game, and information will be released in November.
infrastructure
Trinetix, a blockchain product development company, has received a $10 million strategic investment from Hypra, an investment fund, to expand its Latin American market. Trinetix mainly provides blockchain engineering solutions, intelligent automation services, and cloud support products to global companies, and its customers include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and ExxonMobil.
Fairblock Network, a privacy infrastructure provider built using the Cosmos SDK, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Galileo, with participation from GSR, Robot Ventures, and Reverie. Fairblock aims to make conditional decryption and pre-execution privacy a reality. Unlike ZK technology, Fairblock is designed so that information is only encrypted or decrypted under certain conditions. The blockchain was recently upgraded to its second private testnet, and a public testnet is coming soon.
Bitcoin infrastructure OrdinalsBot has completed a $1 million financing round, with participation from Lightning Ventures, Bitcoin Magazine Ecosystem Fund, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Angsana Investments, Deep Ventures, etc. OrdinalsBot recently launched an SDK product to provide developers with tools to seamlessly integrate Ordinals.
Parsec, an encrypted chain data analysis platform, announced the completion of a $4 million financing, led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from Uniswap Labs Ventures, Robot Ventures, CMT Digital, etc. Parsec also launched a DeFi and NFT analysis product called "Team" and opened its API to the public.
Crypto wallet provider Account Labs has completed a $7.7 million financing round, led by Amber Group, MixMarvel DAO Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners. At the same time, it launched the self-custodial smart wallet UniPass Wallet. UniPass Wallet is a self-custodial wallet focused on peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin transfers. The wallet will also use account abstraction to improve user experience.
Virgo Group, the holding company of Canadian compliant cryptocurrency platform VirgoCX and Australian trading platform Virgo.co, has completed a CAD$5 million financing, with participation from Waterdrip Capital, Skylean Capital and Nextport Capital. The new financing will be used to develop its compliant entities and continue to expand into new regions, and further consolidate the integrated ecosystem from trading to asset management.
MyShell, an AI platform based on opBNB, has completed a $5.6 million seed round of financing at a valuation of $57 million, led by INCE Capital, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, SevenX Ventures, OP Crypto, etc. The platform is aimed at content creators and consumers - creators can generate AI content robots, and consumers can find and use these robots. A professional LLM model designed for role-playing and character creation will be released soon.
Squads Labs, the main developer of the Solana-based multi-signature protocol Squads, completed a $5.7 million strategic financing led by Placeholder VC, with participation from Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures, Jump Crypto, etc., and launched Solana's first multi-signature network expansion wallet SquadsX, which is still in the testing phase.
Web3 file management application Fileverse has completed a $1.5 million seed round of financing, led by Gnosis Chain and actor, with participation from Safe, Mask Network, Arweave Ecosystem Galxe, and the former CTO of Coinbase. It aims to provide users with better ownership of their personal data, thereby providing an alternative to centralized providers such as Google or Notion. Fileverse uses smart contracts and stores encrypted data on the Interstellar File System (IPFS).
Cryptocurrency platform Beluga has completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Fin Capital, with participation from Anagram, UDHC, Dispersion Capital, Aptos Labs, 2 Punks Capital, Borderless Capital, Kyber Capitals, etc. Beluga's management team is composed of senior crypto professionals from Silicon Valley and companies such as Robinhood Crypto, dYdX, CoinDesk, and Coupa Software.
Blockaid, a Web3 security startup founded by two former Israeli military cyber intelligence officers, announced that it has completed $33 million in financing. Its financing was divided into two rounds: a $6 million seed round and a $27 million Series A round. Seed round investors include Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Cyberstarts. The three investors and co-leaders Ribbit Capital and Variant all participated in the Series A round. Blockaid provides web3 security tools to help prevent crypto fraud, phishing, and hacker attacks.
Cryptocurrency startup smlXL has completed a $13.4 million seed round of financing, with participation from a16z crypto, Greylock and others. Its mission is to make blockchain more transparent, useful and accessible. The funds raised will be used to build a 16-person team and develop products, including EVM.code and evm.storage.
Privacy project Nocturne Labs has completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital, with participation from Vitalik Buterin, Bankless Ventures, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, etc., and plans to launch the initial protocol on the mainnet in November. Nocturne combines the best ideas of ZK, AA, and stealth addresses to create an abstraction of Ethereum accounts with built-in asset privacy. Nocturne is developing a protocol designed to allow users to trade anonymously in the Ethereum ecosystem. They can prove that they own the funds through zero-knowledge proof technology and use them for other transactions such as payments, transactions, and gambling.
The first functional ZK state channel startup Virtual Labs has completed a $1.2 million Pre-Seed round of financing at a valuation of $20 million, led by OP Crypto, with participation from Byzantine Marine, Koyamaki Ventures, NEAR Foundation, etc. Virtual Labs aims to enhance the user experience of Web3 by eliminating gas fees, delays, and cumbersome wallet interactions. The company's flagship product, Virtual rollup, is a ZK state channel that facilitates unlimited transactions from an unlimited number of participants.
Web3
Web3 hotel platform Blackbird has completed a $24 million Series A financing round, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Amex Ventures, QED Investors, etc. Blackbird aims to provide restaurants with loyalty and connection tools. Every time you dine out, click Blackbird to get access, rewards, benefits and FLY loyalty points.
Web3 social protocol Phaver has completed a $7 million financing round, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital, dao5, Foresight Ventures and Superhero Capital. Phaver aims to help users join Web3 social platforms more easily and provide a Web3 entry experience similar to existing social platforms. Phaver has integrated its technology or social graph with the decentralized social network ecosystem Lens Protocol and Web3 social network CyberConnect.
Web3 content creation platform RepubliK has completed a $6 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $75 million, with participation from OKX Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Arcane Ventures, CMS Holdings, Comma3 Ventures, Define Ventures, Enjin, FBG Capital, HTX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, etc. RPK tokens will be launched and airdropped, and RPK will represent the full value of Republik's community, governance, and utility.
Web3 social data portal Port3 Network has received investment from DWF Labs, with the specific investment amount not disclosed.
Venture Capital Fund
Deus X Capital, a cryptocurrency investment firm led by Tim Grant, former head of EMEA at Galaxy Digital, announced that it has $1 billion worth of investment assets, with investment areas including private equity, venture capital and fund allocation. The company aims to build an innovative digital asset and fintech portfolio to promote the reform of the financial system and reduce barriers to entry. Deus X is also involved in cryptocurrency market making and investing globally. Grant also serves as the chairman of AlphaLab40, one of Deus X's incubation projects.
Saudi NEOM Investment Fund plans to invest $50 million in Animoca Brands and reach a strategic cooperation to promote Web3 projects. $25 million of which will be issued through convertible notes, and the remaining $25 million will be used to purchase shares in Animoca Brands. Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, said NEOM is expected to become the first region to fully utilize the power of blockchain.
Asset Management
On-chain credit risk management company Cicada has completed a $9.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Choppa Capital, with participation from Bitscale, Bodhi Ventures and Shiliang Tang. It will provide seed funding for multiple new non-custodial lending pools and conduct research and development on new blockchain lending application cases.
L1 Advisors, an on-chain wealth and asset management protocol, has completed a $1.6 million seed round of financing, with VanEck making a strategic investment of $1 million, and Ironclad Financial, Ismail Jai Hokimi and others participating in the investment, to build an operating system for on-chain wealth and asset management. L1 Advisors aims to enable financial professionals and their clients to manage, grow and protect their assets using decentralized infrastructure, such as protocols and wallets.
other
Tokenize.it, a token-based corporate financing platform, has completed a €2 million seed round of financing, with participation from w3fund, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Seed+Speed. It will launch features such as employee participation and public sales (a form of public fundraising).
Verisoul, an anti-witch platform, has raised $3.25 million in funding, with HashKey Capital, BITKRAFT Ventures, King River Capital, and Third Prime participating. The product is designed to identify fake users and address threats from artificial intelligence, robots, and fraud for businesses.
