According to BlockBeats statistics, the total number of financings last week was 21, and the number has not changed much from before. The total amount was approximately US$445.32 million, and the average financing amount was US$21.2057 million. Among them, social/creator economy and infrastructure occupy the main body, with relatively more Metaverse/GameFi and DeFi, more NFT/digital fashion, and less digital asset management/payment and others. The figure below shows the proportion of financing in each sector last week:
Metaverse/GameFi
There were a total of 3 financings in the Metaverse/GameFi field, with a total amount of US$59 million, accounting for 13.25% of the total financing last week.
Futureverse
On July 18, Futureverse, a metaverse infrastructure company, completed a $54 million Series A financing round, led by 10T Holdings and participated by Ripple Labs. Futureverse is composed of 11 different startups from fields such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual universe, and games. Futureverse hopes to combine technical infrastructure and AI-driven content to create an open metaverse that everyone can dream of. With the help of its powerful partners 10T and Ripple, Futureverse aims to transform the metaverse from an abstract concept into a practical, accessible, and interactive destination.
Futureverse was founded to enable developers and users to create and engage in interoperable content and applications that were previously unavailable in the Metaverse. The company's technology platform includes a powerful set of proprietary AI content generation tools designed to enhance the music, objects, characters, and animations that make up the Metaverse. By bringing together 11 Metaverse infrastructure and content companies into a collaborative ecosystem, Futureverse hopes to provide the foundational components for building any Metaverse application while forming one of the world's largest Metaverse communities driven by digital collectibles. Futureverse also hopes to become a leader in the entirely new space of AI gaming. Last week, Futureverse partnered with FIFA to launch AI League, an AI-powered consumer game, on iOS and Android.
Eyeball Games
On July 20, Web3 game developer Eyeball Games announced the completion of a $1.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by White Star Capital, which is backed by Ubisoft’s digital asset fund, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Immutable, Oular, Great South Gate Ventures, and a group of angel investors.
Singapore-based game studio Eyeball Games plans to release the billiards game Eyeball Pool in phases. First, the studio will launch an early access NFT called Eyeball Pool and provide the online game Balldroids to NFT holders. The company then plans to fully launch the game to all gamers in the first quarter of 2024, after which the NFT will be converted into a game starter pack containing exclusive and unique items. The game will initially be released on the Immutable zkEVM chain and will be expanded to other blockchains.
Other funding in the Metaverse/GameFi space includes:
On July 18, Web3 mobile game developer Hexacore announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing round, led by Dubai technology venture capital Scalo Technologies, with participation from Xsolla, Estoty and other angel investors. The new funds will be used to accelerate the company's further development of Web3 features for mobile games, including in-app purchases, NFT collections, and advertising incentives. Hexacore is committed to building an open economy for games based on digital ownership, helping Web2 developers integrate blockchain technology into games, and providing services such as embedded wallets, NFT casting and sales, payment channels, blockchain token economy, and digital asset management.
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NFT/Digital Fashion
There were 2 financings in the NFT/digital fashion field, with a total amount of over US$16 million, accounting for 3.59% of the total financing last week.
Jungle
On July 21, AI NFT market Jungle completed a $16 million financing, and the specific investors have not been disclosed. Jungle aims to create a community, not around a single NFT collection, but to create the market itself through a series of innovative features that have not been seen so far.
Jungle's founding team, with extensive experience from diverse backgrounds in e-commerce, web3, and cryptocurrency, is creating a marketplace that puts user experience, reward systems, and most importantly, security at the forefront of its plans. While details have yet to be announced, the Jungle team aims to offer many exclusive benefits to community members. Jungle's latest platform integration is an AI search tool designed to improve and simplify the way traders browse the NFT market and find the next big investment opportunity.
Other funding in the NFT/digital fashion space includes:
On July 21, according to official news, NFT liquidity solution platform Ra1se has obtained seed round financing from North American mining companies. Ra1se uses multi-chain compatibility to convert NFTs that have lost liquidity into highly liquid blue-chip NFTs through complex algorithms. It is reported that the Ra1se platform will launch a beta version in early August and launch a series of user incentive activities "Hundred E Subsidies".
Ra1se's solution can improve the liquidity of various NFT projects and help the development of the NFT industry. Ra1se's product is based on the perspective of NFT players, converting NFTs with poor liquidity in the wallet into treasure boxes, which players have the opportunity to obtain more valuable NFT projects when they open them. Ra1se is a one-stop solution. Traditional NFT gameplay can no longer meet the diverse needs of players for NFTs, so new gameplay is needed to stimulate players and rekindle their enthusiasm for NFTs.
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Social/Creator Economy
There were 2 financings in the social/creator economy sector, with a total amount of over US$211.4 million, accounting for 47.47% of the total financing last week.
Interface
On July 20, the social feed application Interface announced the completion of a $1.4 million seed round of financing, led by Polymorphic Capital and Mask Network, with participation from Seed Club, Caballeros Capital, Safe Ecosystem Fund, and angel investors such as Blake Gao, Anton Bukov, Sergej Kunz, Arthaud Mesnard, Andrey Scherbovich, and Will Papper.
Interface believes that discussions about developing social protocols and applications in cryptocurrency have overlooked an important aspect: Ethereum itself acts as a social network to some extent. Through various applications in the Ethereum ecosystem, users can participate in activities such as publishing content, connecting with friends, and exchanging messages. However, until recently, this experience has been fragmented, with most available front ends focused on a single application or technical and financial aspects of the on-chain world. Interface seeks to change this by providing a general front end specifically tailored for social use cases, transforming Ethereum into a comprehensive social network.
Other social/creator economy funding includes:
On July 19, Telegram completed a $210 million financing through the issuance of bonds, with Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov and others participating in the investment. Currently, Telegram has about 800 million monthly active users, adding more than 300 million users in the past two and a half years, and attracting 2.5 million new registered users every day. BlockBeats reported yesterday that Pavel Durov said in a statement that he personally purchased a quarter of the newly issued Telegram bonds and invested tens of millions of dollars to support Telegram's growth.
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DeFi
There were 3 financings in the DeFi field, with a total amount of over 18 million US dollars, accounting for 4.04% of the total financing last week.
Athena
On July 17, crypto startup Ethena completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Dragonfly and supported by trading platforms such as Deribit, Bybit, OKX, Gemini and Huobi, as well as BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes and his family office. It is reported that the stablecoin USDe developed by Ethena hedges price risks by using users' collateral and maintains its peg to the US dollar by shorting Ethereum using perpetual swaps. Unlike other stablecoin projects, Ethena has learned from the challenges faced by projects such as Terra and modified a new method to ensure that USDe remains pegged to the US dollar. Ethena's stablecoin achieves stability by using user-provided collateral and hedging price risks by shorting Ethereum perpetual swaps.
By holding equal amounts of staked ETH and perpetual contracts, Ethena ensures that gains and losses on either asset effectively balance each other. In addition to stablecoins, Ethena is also developing a digital native Internet savings bond denominated in US dollars. The bond generates yield by combining collateralized ETH and exchange margin, providing investors with the opportunity to earn passive income. Ethena aims to differentiate itself from previous attempts to build algorithmic stablecoins, such as Terra, which faced significant challenges and deviated from its peg to the US dollar.
Radiant Capital
On July 20, Binance’s venture capital arm, Binance Labs, has invested $10 million in cross-chain lending protocol Radiant Capital. This round of funding will drive further product development and expansion to other Ethereum-compatible chains.
Radiant's release of Radiant V2 will allow for seamless deposits and lending on any mainchain - with a powerful cross-chain protocol fee sharing mechanism. Radiant hopes to enable a cross-chain money market that shares protocol fees with its community. Radiant believes that the first major expansion will allow Radiant to access the approximately $6 billion TVL on the BNB chain. With the new chain, Radiant will understand the importance of perfecting the RDNT emission structure to best build a long-term stable platform across multiple markets.
The rest of DeFi funding includes:
On July 18, the DeFi mortgage lending protocol PWN announced that it had completed a $2 million financing at a valuation of $42 million. This round of financing was participated by Digital Finance Group and others. PWN is a peer-to-peer platform that allows individuals to use digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs as collateral to support loans. Borrowers can use any ERC token as collateral without risk liquidation before the loan expires.
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infrastructure
There were 8 financings in the infrastructure sector with a total amount of over US$124 million, accounting for 27.85% of the total financing last week.
Cosmic Wire
On July 19, Web3 and blockchain solution Cosmic Wire completed a $30 million seed round of financing, led by the Solana Foundation and Polygon.
Cosmic Wire is a web3 and blockchain solution technology company. The funds raised in this round will be used to promote Cosmic Wire's development of decentralized applications and expand the Web3 ecosystem. In addition, Cosmic Wire is also building platform-independent, scalable and interoperable blockchain technology. Cosmic Wire aims to give users full control over their data and online interactions through its platform.
Johnny Lee, General Manager of Games, Entertainment and Media at the Solana Foundation, said that Cosmic Wire’s web3 infrastructure will be built on the Solana network. “Their Metaverse SDK solution significantly reduces the development time for high-fidelity, 3D, browser-based Metaverse experiences, and integrates physical web3 digital products, content CDN, payment solutions, and avatar UGC all in one. The Solana Foundation has always supported tool and infrastructure builders, and we are excited that Cosmic Wire will provide unprecedented new Metaverse experiences on the Solana network,” Lee added.
In addition to fundraising, Cosmic Wire was selected as a participant in Google Cloud’s Web3 Startup Program ahead of its official launch, giving the company access to custom resources and Google Cloud credits. The Solana Foundation is one of Google Cloud’s partners in the program.
DappOS
On July 21, the Web3 operating protocol DappOS announced the completion of its seed round of financing at a valuation of US$50 million, led by IDG Capital and Sequoia China, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, etc. DappOS was selected for the Binance Labs Season 5 Incubation Program in November 2022, and received Pre-Seed round financing from Binance Labs in June this year.
DappOS is the first Web3 operating protocol that aims to make dApps as user-friendly as mobile applications. Thanks to the DappOS solution based on account abstraction and execution network, dApps can easily integrate the DappOS solution, and users can interact with Web3 dApps on any chain seamlessly and intuitively. DappOS introduces a unified account feature, providing a CeFi-like user experience while providing complete decentralization.
Zero RISK
On July 19, Web3 infrastructure company RISC Zero completed a $40 million Series A financing round led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Galaxy Digital, IOSG, RockawayX, Maven 11, Fenbushi Capital, Delphi Digital, Algaé Ventures, IOBC, Tribute Labs' Zero Dao and Alchemy. RISC Zero is an infrastructure company designed to help developers develop zero-proof software. It is about to launch the Bonsai computing platform, a decentralized proof engine that allows developers to integrate zk proofs into their applications and chains to improve security. RISC Zero's ZK virtual machine (zkVM) enables developers to create ZK-powered applications using familiar languages such as Rust and C++. ZkVM differs from the popular zkEVM architecture in that it is chain-agnostic and has no predefined concepts of wallet addresses or other blockchain components for verifying transaction data.
RISC Zero said that with the new round of funding, it will be able to release its Bonsai computing platform, which allows for the rapid creation and deployment of applications in cloud and decentralized environments. Bonsai frees developers from the tedious proof orchestration and server architecture, allowing them to focus on creating applications.
The remaining infrastructure financing includes:
On July 22, Cymbal, a blockchain technology startup headquartered in Menlo Park, California, announced the completion of a $18.5 million financing round, with participation from First Round Capital, Solana Ventures, CAA Connect, Coinbase Ventures, etc. The funds raised in this round will be used to expand the business and increase development efforts. Cymbal is building a "readable" Ethereum blockchain browser to convert complex on-chain data into visual and easy-to-understand transaction summary analysis, such as wallet portfolio rankings, number of NFT buyers, sales of specific crypto projects, etc., which is easy for ordinary users to understand. At this stage, Cymbal supports the analysis and processing of Ethereum blockchain data, and will be expanded to the Solana blockchain in the future.
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On July 21, DAO registration service provider MIDAO completed a $1 million financing, with participation from The LegalTech Fund, FJ Labs, and angel investor Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase. This round of financing will enhance MIDAO's core products, provide legal recognition for Web3 projects and DAOs, and help ensure liability protection for contributors, expand its global partner network of Web3 lawyers and professional service providers, and expand MIDAO's service scope around the world. MIDAO is a partner network of more than 300 vetted Web3 lawyers whose mission is to enable Web3 organizations in various industries to access legal and regulatory frameworks and provide services to existing DAOs seeking legal recognition.
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On July 21, Side Labs, the parent company of the Cosmos ecosystem interoperable financial protocol Side Protocol, completed a $1.5 million pre-seed round of financing, with participation from Hashkey Capital, KR1, Continue Capital, Symbolic Capital, Informal Systems, etc. The new funds will be used to expand its team and ensure compliance with legal and compliance standards, while building a mesh liquidity network that aims to eliminate bridges and intermediary tokens for cross-chain asset exchanges through a liquidity center network.
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On July 22, Superblock, the developer of lightweight node Layer 1 blockchain protocol Over Protocol, announced that it had raised a total of $8 million through two financing transactions, with investors including SK, Netmarble, DSC, E&Investment, Schmidt, SpringCamp and NaverZ. Over Protocol is a Layer 1 blockchain built using the Ethanos protocol, which aims to reduce the cost of blockchain node maintenance by allowing anyone to run a node using a PC to become a validator by reducing storage requirements. The new funds will be used to further expand the Korean market.
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Digital asset management/payment
There were 2 financings in the field of digital asset management/payment, with a total amount of over US$15 million, accounting for 3.37% of the total financing last week.
Echooo Wallet
On July 17, the account abstraction crypto wallet Echooo Wallet completed a $15 million financing at a valuation of $100 million. This round of financing was participated by Skyview Capital, A&T Capital and others. Echooo Wallet will launch the "Limited Time Free Account Abstraction Wallet Giveaway" event at 22:00 on July 17. Echooo is a hybrid architecture wallet (EOA+CA). EOA wallet: Echooo generates wallet private keys, but unlike traditional wallets, it uses mnemonics for users to save. It encrypts private keys through algorithms and stores encrypted files in the cloud. In the future, wallets will also have MPC (multi-party secure computing) capabilities. CA wallet: multi-signature and social recovery mechanism.
Even if the account is stolen. For EOA wallets, the private key used for transactions is still in the hands of the user (backed up in the cloud), which ensures that the user's assets will not be lost. For CA wallets, transactions require multiple confirmations, which also ensures that the user's assets will not be lost. Both can register a new account and then use the cloud key or social recovery mechanism to retrieve the wallet in the new account.
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Digital asset management/payment of the remaining financing includes:
On July 21, the hybrid trading platform OpenEx completed a Pre-A round of financing with a valuation of US$50 million. The amount was not disclosed. C² Ventures, Agallochum Capital, TKX Capital and others participated in the investment. The founder and managing director of Galxe and Fenbushi Capital participated in the investment as an individual. This round of financing will be used to improve the DApp trading experience and develop new financial products. OpenEx is a hybrid trading platform that integrates CEX and DEX.
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Other financing
There was 1 other financing with a total amount of US$1.92 million, accounting for 0.43% of the total financing last week. Including:
On July 18, Tromero, a London-based machine learning training and hosting platform, completed a £1.5 million seed round of financing, led by BlueYard Capital. Tromero will use the investment to build a team and deliver a fully functional platform beta in the next 12 months. Tromero is a consensus protocol-based blockchain in which proof of work is machine learning training and hosting. Proof of work provides the cornerstone for blockchain consensus and provides a trained ML model, a service the startup calls "proof of useful work." For data processors, Tromero provides crypto rewards to miners, as well as payments in fiat currency for completed work.
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