Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (1.30-2.5), which was a significant decrease compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:
The DeFi track has become more popular, with three events announced, including the DeFi lending market Archimedes completing a $4.9 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC;
The blockchain game sector has recovered, with 5 events announced. The crypto game platform Oh Baby Games announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing, led by eGirl Capital and Synergis Capital.
The popularity of NFT and Metaverse declined, and two financings were announced. NFT lending agreement Fungify completed a $6 million financing, led by CitizenX;
The infrastructure and tool track remained stable, with 7 events announced. Web3 infrastructure company BlockJoy announced the completion of nearly $11 million in seed and Series A financing, with Gradient Ventures and others participating in the investment;
Other Web3/crypto-related projects announced 7 events. Crypto mining company Pow.re completed a $9.2 million Series A financing and received $18 million in strategic investment. Its Series A financing was led by Haru Invest.
The centralized finance sector announced three financings, among which the crypto mining company Pow.re completed a $9.2 million Series A financing and received $18 million in strategic investment. Its Series A financing was led by Haru Invest.
Let’s take a comprehensive look at last week’s investment and financing events.
DeFi DeFi lending market Archimedes completes $4.9 million seed round, led by Hack VC
DeFi lending market Archimedes announced the completion of a $4.9 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Uncorrelated Venture, Psalion, Truffle Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Haven VC and Palsar. It is reported that the Archimedes platform will be launched this month, having completed a $2.4 million Pre-seed round of financing in March last year. Archimedes said that it provides a leverage function that multiplies the user's original income opportunities. Leverage recipients using the platform will receive an NFT representing a stablecoin position that generates income, with a leverage ratio of up to 10 times the principal collateral amount.
DeFi liquidity protocol Squid completes $3.5 million financing, led by North Island Ventures
DeFi liquidity protocol Squid announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing, led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Distributed Global, Fabric Ventures, Galileo, Chapter One and Node Capital. The new funds will help Squid add more supported chains and expand the team. According to reports, Squid is a cross-chain transaction and liquidity routing protocol on the Axelar Network. Squid uses existing DEXs to trade and send any local tokens between chains. Transactions can be combined with Axelar's universal messaging, so Squid can achieve one-click transactions between any application and any user using any asset.
Derivatives on-chain market maker Rysk Finance completes $1.4 million in financing
Rysk Finance, a derivatives on-chain market maker, has completed a $1.4 million financing led by Lemniscap, with participation from Encode Club, Ascensive Assets, Starbloom, Yunt Capital and Manifold Trading, as well as angel investors Hype.eth, Ivangbi, Windra Thio, etc. The funds will be used to enhance platform security, promote engineering and research, and accelerate the launch of the decentralized options trading market maker protocol Rysk Beyond.
Chain Games
Crypto gaming platform Oh Baby Games completes $6 million seed round of financing
Crypto gaming platform Oh Baby Games announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing, led by eGirl Capital and Synergis Capital, with participation from crypto gaming DAO Merit Circle, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, crypto Twitter KOL cl207, inversebrah and other angel investors.
According to reports, Oh Baby Games' first upcoming game is called What The Kart, a game based on a traditional racing game. After this release, Rugpull Guys and a platform fighting game will also be released. Oh Baby Games plans to launch cross-game collections in 2023 as part of its promotion strategy. Oh Baby Games has participated in the development of games such as the Call of Duty series, League of Legends, and Magic: The Gathering.
YGG Japan, a subsidiary of blockchain game guild YGG, completed a private placement financing of approximately US$3.09 million
YGG Japan, a subsidiary of blockchain game guild YGG, has completed a private placement financing of 400 million yen (about 3.09 million US dollars). 18 companies including Square Enix, SEGA, GREE, MARBLEX, enish, Adways Ventures, Coincheck, Gate.io Labs, Vector, Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC), CAICA DIGITAL, Days Inc., Emoote, Arriva Studio, Calorful Marketing, Kingdomverse, ForN Gaming Guild, and Eureka Entertainment participated in the investment. The new funds will be used for recruitment, product development and game promotion. Through this round of financing, YGG Japan's cumulative financing amount has reached about 750 million yen (about 5.8 million US dollars).
Web3 Metaverse Game My NFT Wars Completes $2 Million in Funding, Led by Social Discovery Group
Web3 metaverse game My NFT Wars announced the completion of a $2 million private round of financing, led by Social Discovery Group, with participation from angel investors including Nika Tech Family, Blackshield Capital, Wannabiz, singer Potap, and Megogo.net co-founder Fedor Drozdovski. It is reported that My NFT Wars is a Web3 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that uses a token-based Play-Create-Own model and uses NFT and game native tokens to incentivize players.
Blockchain game company MYSTiC GAMES completes $1.3 million financing, led by Shima Capital
Blockchain game company MYSTiC GAMES announced that it has completed a new round of financing of US$1.3 million, led by Shima Capital. MYSTiC GAMES was founded in 2022 by Matthew Buxton and Jakob Braunisch, veterans of the blockchain game industry. It mainly develops Web3 games integrated with mobile phones. Players can get tradable NFTs for free by participating in the game. Its first game "Call of the VoYd" is about to be released. It is reported that MYSTiC GAMES has also reached a cooperation with the Web3 game platform Nefta, which will provide the company with support such as game token management, native wallets and white label market creation.
Blockchain game Metaline announced the completion of a new round of financing, with Infinity Labs and others participating
NFT sailing game Metaline announced the completion of a new round of financing, with Infinity Labs, PAKA, and GEMS participating in the investment, and the specific amount was not disclosed.
NFT & Metaverse
NFT lending protocol Fungify completes $6 million in financing, with Distributed Global and others participating
NFT lending protocol Fungify has completed a $6 million financing, led by CitizenX, with participation from Distributed Global, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Taureon Capital, Anagram, Flow Ventures, former Polychain Capital president Joe Eagan, and Merit Circle founder Mark Borsten. Fungify plans to launch in the first or second quarter of this year after the security audit is completed. It is reported that Fungify provides instant NFT sales, NFT mortgage loans, and income blue-chip NFT indexes by using Chainlink's NFT floor price feed.
NFT loyalty solution Cohort completes €3.2 million seed round
Cohort, an NFT loyalty solution provider based in Paris, France, announced the completion of a 3.2 million euro seed round of financing, co-led by IRIS and Axeleo Capital, with participation from Kima Ventures, 3founders, Thibaud Elzière, Quentin Nickmans, Amaury Sepulchre, and angel investors such as Guillaume Princen (Stripe) and Brian O'Hagan (Sorare). This round of financing will enable the company co-founded by Séraphie de Tracy and Nathan Barraillé to accelerate its sales expansion in France and abroad and develop its product and technical teams.
Infrastructure & Tools
Web3 infrastructure company BlockJoy raises nearly $11 million
Web3 infrastructure company BlockJoy announced the completion of nearly $11 million in seed and Series A financing, with participation from Gradient Ventures, Draper Dragon, Active Capital, Borderless Capital, Tribe Capital, Bessemer, Renegade Ventures, etc. The new funds will be used to help it launch patented blockchain node management software. According to reports, BlockJoy enables customers to deploy and run decentralized blockchain nodes on any infrastructure while maintaining a cloud-like experience, reducing costs by up to 80% compared to traditional cloud providers. Within six months of the launch of the platform, more than 1,200 validators have been run for Helium, and a beta version supporting Ethereum and Helium was recently launched, with plans to support more new protocols after completing public beta testing in the coming weeks.
Blockchain security company Sec3 completes $10 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital
Sec3, a blockchain security company that audits smart contracts and other services, has completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Sanctor Capital, Essence VC, former ParaFi Capital partner Santiago Santos, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Sec3 currently only serves projects in the Solana ecosystem, and its clients include Helium Network, Metaplex, and Tulip. In the future, it plans to expand to other blockchains, including Aptos, Sui, Ethereum, and Polygon.
Cryptographic security company Hypernative completes $9 million seed round of financing
A startup focused on cryptocurrency security has completed a $9 million seed round of financing, led by boldstart ventures and IBI tech fund, with strategic investments from Blockdaemon, Alchemy, Borderless, CMT Digital, Nexo and angel investors. Hypernative's platform monitors on-chain and off-chain data after deploying the protocol to the blockchain to predict any potential vulnerability exploit threats in real time.
Blockchain project Sovereign Labs completes $7.4 million seed round of financing
Sovereign Labs, a crypto project focused on building rollups, has completed a $7.4 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Maven 11, 1KX, Robot Ventures, and Plaintext Capital. A spokesperson for the project said the financing brought the company's valuation to "eight figures." It is reported that Sovereign Labs is building a software development kit (SDK) to help developers create secure and interoperable zero-knowledge rollups. Related reading: Learn about Sovereign in one article: Providing SDK for Rollups to lower the threshold for using zero-knowledge proof technology
Sumi Network raises $3 million at $30 million valuation, led by Scytale
Sumi Network, a decentralized communication and storage solution provider, has raised $3 million at a $30 million valuation. The round was led by Scytale, with participation from Fuse, D1 Ventures, and DFG. Sumi Network started out as a Polkadot blockchain project focused on enabling decentralized wallet communications. During this time, it developed a proprietary storage layer that combines peer-to-peer technology and is compatible with Amazon S3, a storage solution provided by Amazon Web Services, according to a release from the company.
Web3 SaaS developer toolkit platform Hamster Network completes $1 million seed round
Hamster, a Web3 SaaS developer toolkit platform, announced the completion of a million-dollar seed round of financing, with participation from listed companies, Waterdrip Capital, Stratified Capital and other institutions. Hamster is a one-stop DevOps development and operation tool. In the version released by Hamster this time, multiple contract templates such as Solidity5 templates, NFT, DAO, etc. have been successfully integrated. Users can choose the corresponding template to quickly create smart contracts and deploy them with one click. At the same time, Hamster can be used to detect and operate contracts, effectively improving development efficiency and quality.
Decentralized data system Inery completes new round of financing, Truth Ventures participates in the investment
Decentralized data system Inery has completed a new round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclosed. Truth Ventures participated in the investment and reached a strategic partnership with it. The two parties will jointly build a decentralized database and promote the integration of distributed database functions and blockchain functions.
other
Bitcoin mining company TeraWulf raises $32 million in equity financing to restructure its debt
Bitcoin miner TeraWulf said Thursday it has also reached a "binding agreement in principle" with existing lenders to restructure its debt, which is subject to equity financing. TeraWulf also raised $32 million through a public stock offering. The debt restructuring will replace amortization of the term loan with a free cash flow liquidation mechanism by April 2024, provided TeraWulf raises the necessary equity proceeds by March 15.
Crypto mining company Pow.re completes $9.2 million Series A financing with a valuation of $150 million and receives $18 million in strategic investment
Canadian crypto mining company Pow.re announced Thursday that it has closed a $9.2 million Series A round and received $18 million in strategic investment. The Series A round values the company at $150 million and was led by Haru Invest, with participation from Trinito and RFD Capital. The $18 million strategic investment came from Haru and will be used to fund the company's expansion in Paraguay. With the expansion in Paraguay, the mining company said it will have a mining capacity of more than 500 Petahash per second (PH/s) this quarter. Its operations in Paraguay will be powered by hydroelectric power. Pow.re also operates a mining facility in Wabush, Labrador in Canada's North Atlantic, which also uses hydroelectric power, as well as a mining facility near the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, which uses wind power.
Web3 marketing company Addressable completes $7.5 million seed round
Addressable, an Israel-based Web3 marketing company, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Fabric Ventures and Viola Ventures, with other backers including North Island Ventures and Mensch Capital Partners. The company collects data from a range of blockchains, including Ethereum and Polygon, and then uses big data technologies such as Apache Spark to index blockchain and social data. Addressable then uses this data to build audiences and deploy machine learning models to correlate profiles.
Longevity research organization VitaDAO completes $4.1 million in financing, with Pfizer's venture capital firm participating
VitaDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that aims to fund longevity research projects, has raised $4.1 million from investors including Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital, and Balaji Srinivasan. The project aims to use the funds to further fund longevity research projects and biotech startups that will be spun out of the DAO next year. VitaDAO is part of a nascent movement known as decentralized science (DeSci). DeSci aims to replace the current scientific ecosystem that relies on centralized research and funding institutions, and aims to raise funds for research through crowdfunding and decentralized ownership.
Web3 social data portal Port3 Network completes $3 million seed round
Web3 social data portal Port3 has completed a $3 million seed round of financing, led by KuCoin Ventures, with participation from Jump Crypto, SNZ, Block Infinity, Dragon Roark, ViaBTC, Cryptonite, Lapin Digital, Cogitent and Momentum6. The financing activity ended last year and adopted an equity and token warrant structure. The new funds will be used to increase Port3 Network's market share and customer base. According to reports, Port3 Network was founded in 2022 and is a portal for acquiring and aggregating Web3 social data. The team currently has 15 people. Port3 Network's SoQuest application allows projects to incentivize users to share their data through tasks and rewards to attract traffic.
Web3 opinion platform Polemix completes $1 million financing, Be Kind Tech Fund invests
Web3 opinion platform Polemix has completed a $1 million financing, which was invested solely by Be Kind Tech Fund, a venture fund under digital native company Globant. It is reported that Web3 opinion platform Polemix aims to upgrade the way people support and oppose opinion leaders with Web3 technology. The Polemix platform enables influential opinion leaders across themes to make short videos and share their views on hot issues. Supporters can purchase proof of support tokens (POSU) for opinion leaders' ideas, which can also provide benefits such as special access to leaders.
Web3 financial reporting platform Elven completes seed round financing, led by ABCDE
According to official news, Web3 financial reporting platform Elven has completed its seed round of financing, led by ABCDE and participated by Zhongding Capital. The specific amount has not yet been disclosed. Elven is an automated Web3 financial reporting platform that provides one-click transparent, compliant, and auditable financial reporting services for Crypto projects, investment institutions, and research institutions. It currently covers 7,163 tokens, 5,534 NFT projects, has identified 107 accounting entities, and processes more than 5 million transactions per day.
Centralized Finance
Crypto payment company MoonPay completes $5.67 million in financing
Crypto payment company MoonPay has completed a new round of financing on January 23, raising a total of US$5,678,231. According to previous news, in April last year, MoonPay completed a financing of US$87 million, with more than 60 well-known investors including singer Justin Bieber, rapper Snoop Dogg, tennis player Maria Sharapova and actor Bruce Willis participating. It is reported that this financing is part of MoonPay's Series A financing. In December last year, MoonPay was registered by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Digital banking platform BoundlessPay completes Pre-seed round of financing, Cardano ecosystem accelerator Adaverse participates in the investment
Digital banking platform BoundlessPay announced the completion of its Pre-seed round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclosed to the public. Cardano ecosystem accelerator Adaverse and EMURGO Africa participated in the investment. BoundlessPay aims to build a sustainable Web3 digital banking platform that provides cross-border transactions. The platform is built on the Cardano blockchain and supports cross-border collection, remittance, payment and settlement, as well as instant foreign exchange services through USD stablecoins such as USDT and Cardano USDA.
Crypto staking income platform MoodMiner completes $400,000 seed round of financing
According to Yahoo Finance, MoodMiner, a cryptocurrency yield staking platform, announced the completion of a $400,000 seed round of financing, with participation from entities such as CoinList, Circle, Polygon and some angel investors.
Institutional Funds
Breed VC closes first fund at approximately $20 million
Breed VC, a cryptocurrency-focused investment company, has raised approximately $20 million for its first fund, with supporters including Castle Island Ventures, Tribe Capital, and Shima Capital. Breed VC will focus on Pre-Seed and seed rounds, with verticals of interest including DeFi, consumer-centric DApps, NFT infrastructure, and blockchain expansion solutions. Breed VC founder Jed Breed worked at Circle and helped Circle launch the U.S. dollar stablecoin USDC. Breed VC has already struck its first deal with a portfolio company, a zero-knowledge borrowing/lending platform, details of which have not yet been officially announced. In addition to financial support, Breed VC will also provide operational support to the company.