Financing Weekly Report: 27 financings raised over US$141 million, with SocialFi and RWA tracks attracting much attention

Written by: TechFlow
According to RootData, 27 blockchain startups announced funding between April 29 and May 5, raising a total of $141.4 million.
Projects that received financing of more than $5 million include:
Web3 content publishing platform Paragraph announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$5 million;
Farcaster Client Kiosk parent company Reflective Technologies completed $10 million in financing;
Modular liquidity protocol Mitosis announced the completion of $7 million financing;
The developer of Web3 game Shadow War completed $5 million in seed and Series A financing;
Web3 wine market Baxus announced the completion of a $5 million strategic round of financing;
Agora, an encrypted voting service platform, announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing;
Hybrid cryptocurrency exchange X10 announced the completion of $6.5 million in financing;
Celestia liquidity staking protocol MilkyWay completes $5 million seed round of financing.
Highlight Projects
MilkyWay
Introduction: MilkyWay is a liquidity staking solution for the Celestia ecosystem, initially deployed and running on Osmosis, with the long-term plan to migrate to Celestia's rollkit for native milkTIA issuance. When users stake TIA tokens on MilkyWay for liquidity, they receive an on-chain representation of the TIA staking state, called milkTIA.
Investment institutions: Celestia liquidity staking protocol MilkyWay completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Binance Labs, Hack VC, Crypto.com Capital and LongHash Ventures
Features:
1. MilkyWay stated that users only need to stake TIA to earn mPoints, and plans to airdrop 10% of the MILK supply to mPoint holders.
2. MilkyWay plans to expand beyond Celestia, and its token is expected to be launched in late Q2 or early Q3.
3. Investment recognition from Binance Labs and Polychain Capital.
Blade Games
Introduction: Blade Games is a blockchain-based game studio dedicated to building trustless games and their supporting infrastructure. Team members come from a variety of backgrounds, including game design, DeFi, smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proof research.
Investment institutions: On-chain game studio and infrastructure provider Blade Games completed a $2.4 million seed round of financing, led by PTC Crypto and IOSG Ventures, with participation from Bonfire Union Ventures, Animoca Ventures, Mantle, ForesightX, Formless Capital, Public Works, Puzzle Ventures, K300 Ventures and others.
Features:
1. Blade Games' self-developed game Dune Factory launched its internal beta test on May 1, and announced the internal beta test rules and rewards on April 29. The game is scheduled to be publicly tested at the end of May.
2. Games built with Blade Game's self-developed zk game engine can run game logic in zkVM and push state differences to the chain as zkSNARK proofs, which are then verified on L2. The zk game engine can currently process up to 12-15 frames per second, and will soon update the batch proof function. The engine currently supports all game studios to develop survival, tower defense, RPG and roguelike card building games.
3. Blade Games founder Zee Cheng is the former investment director of Old Fashion Research, and co-founder Liu Jiapei is the former investment director of IOBC Capital and former investment director of Matrixport Ventures.
Kiosk
Kiosk is a Farcaster client that enables creators to build a community from 0 to 1 within the app. Creators can share media-rich ideas with a social graph, make them mintable as NFTs, gather like-minded collectors and collaborators in channels, build custom channel economies such as tipping and distribution, and chat with their community.
Introduction:
Investment institutions: Farcaster client Kiosk parent company Reflective Technologies completed a $10 million financing, led by Electric Capital, with participation from a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures and Variant, for the development of Kiosk.
Features:
1. Denis Nazarov, the founder of Kiosk, is also the founder of Mirror. Previously, he was a consultant to Uniswap Labs and an investment partner at a16z, and graduated from New York University.
2. Paragraph acquired the Web3 content publishing platform Mirror, which will shift its focus to the development of Kiosk. Currently, users can enter the Waitlist in Kiosk’s Mirror by subscribing to Kiosk and minting the NFT of the official announcement article.
3. The main function of Kiosk is to make it easier for users to embed digital assets directly into their social media posts, which means that users can reference NFTs in their posts, and Kiosk can embed additional blockchain functions directly in the image, such as viewing the blockchain address of the NFT, or purchasing it directly through the post.
Specific financing information for each track:
Bitcoin Ecosystem
Bitcoin domain name protocol TNA Protocol announced the completion of its first round of financing, with participation from MH Ventures, Cogitent Ventures and CSP DAO, etc. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. It is reported that TNA is a domain name protocol for Bitcoin, which aims to improve its usability and expand the range of its assets and primitives.
DeFi
Hybrid cryptocurrency exchange X10 announced that it has completed a $6.5 million financing round from investors including Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Starkware and Cyber ​​Fund, as well as well-known angel investors such as Revolut executives and Lido founder Konstantin Lomashuk.
Celestia liquidity staking protocol MilkyWay has completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Binance Labs, Hack VC, Crypto.com Capital and LongHash Ventures. It is reported that the structure of this round of financing is a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) and token warrants for the joint lead investors, and a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) for participating investors.
Agora, an encrypted voting service platform, announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Seed Club Ventures, and Consensys Ventures. Agora hopes to create a new governance software standard for protocols to help them organize their voting systems more efficiently. Uniswap, Optimism, and Nouns are its early customers.
Bedrock, a multi-chain liquidity re-pledge protocol, announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by OKX Ventures, LongHash Ventures and Comma3 Ventures, with participation from Waterdrip Capital, Lbank Labs, Amber Group, ArcheFund, Whale Ground, and angel investors including Babylon co-founder Fisher Yu. This round of financing aims to accelerate the development of its liquidity re-pledge solution and drive further growth.
Modular liquidity protocol Mitosis announced the completion of a $7 million financing round, led by Amber Group and Foresight Ventures, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Folius Ventures, Citizen X, GSR, Cogitent Ventures, No Limit Holdings, Digital Asset Capital Management, Pivot Global, Everstake, and angel investors from Zellic, XAI, ether.fi, Hyperlane, Osmosis, DefiLlama, Injective, Keplr, Puffer, Curve, and Interchain.
Cross-chain DeFi protocol EYWA has completed a $7 million seed round of financing, led by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov, with participation from Fenbushi Capital, GBV Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Marshland Capital, Mulana Capital, etc. EYWA and Curve are working together to develop a trustless bridge that relies on the consensus of a reliable messaging protocol, thereby eliminating the reliance on a single bridge to move large liquidity positions.
GameFi
Web3 game startup GFAL (Games for a Living) completed a $3.2 million seed round of financing, with participation from Supercell, Mitch Lasky, former co-managing director of ESL Heinrich Zetlmayer, Bonduc Bioscience SL, BCNBCNLVC, and Sandsoft CEO David Fernandez. It is reported that GFAL has launched the GFAL token in the first quarter of 2023 and raised $4.4 million in funds.
Style Protocol, a platform for Metaverse 3D assets, announced the completion of a $2.5 million seed round of financing, and the specific investment institutions were not disclosed. According to the project white paper: "Style Protocol is designed to be built on Polkadot to increase interoperability with all blockchains and make NFTs available on every blockchain. But to build the protocol to make it flexible and usable on all blockchains, two steps are required. First, create bridge logic using smart contracts on Solidity and obtain all blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Second, create logic on the Parachain on Polkadot to be compatible with all other blockchains."
On-chain game studio and infrastructure provider Blade Games completed a $2.4 million seed round of financing, led by PTC Crypto and IOSG Ventures, with participation from Bonfire Union Ventures, Animoca Ventures, Mantle, ForesightX, Formless Capital, Public Works, Puzzle Ventures, K300 Ventures and others.
Swedish game studio Patriots Division has raised $5 million in seed and Series A funding for its Web3 game Shadow War, led by Momentum 6, with participation from iAngels, Cointelligence Fund, Xborg, Andromeda VC, Cogitent Ventures, and Cluster Capital. Shadow War is a 5v5 third-person action game set in a sci-fi future, drawing inspiration from well-known games such as Overwatch and League of Legends, focusing on the fusion of futurism, fantasy, action, and competition.
DWF Ventures announced that it has invested in blockchain game studio Overworld. According to it, Overworld recently announced plans to launch a new NFT series, in addition to the Overworld Arena.
SocialFi
Metale Protocol, a Web3 content distribution platform, recently announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of extended financing. As of now, its total seed round financing amount has reached $4 million. This round of financing was completed in the first quarter of this year, led by Aipollo Capital, Waterdrip Capital, and Ultiverse Dao, and participated by many senior entrepreneurs. The funds will be used to build a decentralized short drama content ecosystem.
Farcaster Client Kiosk's parent company Reflective Technologies has completed a $10 million financing round, led by Electric Capital, with participation from a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures and Variant, for the development of Kiosk.
Web3 content publishing platform Paragraph announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$5 million, with participation from Union Square Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. According to the news released by Paragraph, Paragraph founder Colin Armstrong will serve as CEO, and Mirror founder Denis Nazarov will serve as an advisor.
Web3 content publishing platform Mirror was acquired by Paragraph. The Mirror team will continue to operate independently and shift its focus to developing "Kiosk", a Web3 social application based on Farcaster that integrates blockchain and e-commerce. The founder of Paragraph said that Mirror and Paragraph will eventually merge into a unified product suite.
Farcaster Ecosystem SocialFi project Airstack announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Red Beard Ventures, with participation from SuperLayer, Polymorphic Capital, Superscrypt, Hashed Emergent, Delta Blockchain Fund, CSP DAO, NGC, Primal Capital, Kyber, Resolute Ventures, etc. It is reported that Airstack provides products and development tools to empower creators and developers and help them make profits.
RWA
Balcony DAO, a real estate NFT investment platform, announced the completion of its Pre-Seed round of financing, with Avalanche Blizzard Fund participating. The specific amount and valuation information have not been disclosed. The new financing will be used to expand operations and development work. It is reported that Balcony is committed to building an RWA blockchain platform for institutions and government agencies, providing on-chain transactions and asset settlement services, which are currently mainly used in the real estate field.
Web3 wine market Baxus announced the completion of a $5 million strategic round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Solana Ventures, Narwhal Ventures, FJ Labs and a group of angel investors. Its Web3 market is built on the Solana blockchain and allows buyers to trade using credit cards, ACH, direct wire transfers or cryptocurrencies including USDC. The beta version was launched last summer.
Backed, a Swiss-based tokenized asset issuer, announced the completion of a $9.5 million financing led by Gnosis, with participation from Exor Seeds, Cyber ​​Fund and other institutions. This round of financing aims to help Backed accelerate its private token issuance services and introduce more asset management companies to the blockchain. As a compliant institution under supervision, Backed has issued more than $50 million worth of tokenized physical assets, including ETF tokenized products and individual stock tokens such as Coinbase (COIN) and Tesla (TSLA).
RWA tokenization company Securitize has completed $47 million in financing, led by BlackRock, with participation from Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets. Securitize will use the proceeds from this round of financing to accelerate product development, expand its global footprint, and further strengthen its partnerships in the financial services ecosystem. Joseph Chalom, BlackRock's global head of strategic ecosystem partnerships, has been appointed to the Securitize board of directors.
Infrastructure and tools
Holograph, the LayerZero ecosystem full-chain tokenization protocol, announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing of US$3 million, led by Mechanism Capital and Selini Capital, with participation from Hal Press's Northrock Capital, Arca, Courtside Ventures and Hartmann Capital. So far, the total financing of the project has reached US$11 million. It is reported that the financing will be used to promote full-chain games. Since the launch of the mainnet in 2023, Holograph has helped 1.5 million unique wallets mint more than 10 million full-chain tokens. In addition, Holograph has facilitated more than 2 million cross-chain transactions using LayerZero's cross-chain message protocol.
Binance Labs announced an investment in Movement Labs. The specific amount has not been disclosed. Movement Labs will support Sui Move, Aptos Move and the embedded EVM interpreter MEVM, enabling Sui, Aptos and EVM users to use L2, bringing smart contract security and parallelization to Ethereum.
Pantera Capital announced an investment in TON. The specific amount has not been disclosed. Pantera Capital is a crypto venture capital firm that manages assets worth more than $5 billion. They claim to believe that TON has the ability to introduce cryptocurrency to the masses because the token has been widely used in the Telegram network.
Crestal, a dynamic modular service platform, announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from MH Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, and NxGen. The new funds will be used to accelerate the construction of modular services. Crestal is a dynamic modular service platform where developers can discover, deploy, and upgrade modular services by binding decentralized providers with verifiable proof of performance (PoP TM).
CeFi and Beyond
LazyBear, a cryptocurrency trading ecosystem for retail traders, announced the completion of a strategic financing of 4 million USDT. The participating investors and strategic partners include Gogeko Labs, DWF Labs, Shadow Labs, Salad Labs, Bees Network, REI Network, IBIT, Crypto Bullish, SYNBO Protocol, Bazaars, Sypool, Bitcoin Gbox, GemX Crypto, Wikibit, etc. According to reports, LazyBear is a cryptocurrency trading ecosystem that is committed to providing users with the industry's lowest free, inclusive and enjoyable trading experience.
Resonance Security, a Web3 integrated cybersecurity service provider, has completed a $1.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Arca, Fabric VC, and Blockchain Founders Fund. The new funds will be used to further accelerate expansion.
RWA market Ironlight announced the completion of a $12 million financing, and the specific investor information has not been disclosed. It is reported that Ironlight was founded by Rob McGrath and Matt Celebuski, aiming to tokenize private securities that are usually illiquid, such as real estate, natural resources, fine arts, public infrastructure and private equity. Its goal is to become a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market regulated by the US SEC, and the registration process will be initiated later.