According to incomplete statistics from CoinVoice, there were more than 20 project financing cases in the blockchain field announced this week (1.08-1.12), including 2 in the infrastructure field, 4 in the CeFi field, 5 in the DeFi field, 2 in the chain gaming and NFT fields, 3 pens in Web3 field. There have been two tens of millions of US dollars in financing. Quora, an online question and answer website, has raised US$75 million from a16z, which is also the largest financing event this week. Compared with last week, the number of investment and financing transactions in the cryptocurrency market increased this week. From the perspective of track distribution, projects that have received financing are mainly distributed in the CeFi, DeFi and Web3 tracks. The following is an overview of this week’s financing events.
infrastructure
Bitcoin Layer 2 Bitfinity completes token financing, valued at $130 million
Bitfinity, a blockchain project developing Bitcoin’s ICP Protocol, a second-layer network based on Internet computers, has raised a total of $7 million in funding.
Bitfinity co-founder Max Chamberlin told The Block in an interview that investors include Polychain Capital, ParaFi Capital, Warburg Serres, Dokia Capital and Draft Ventures. Chamberlain said the funding came in two parts — a seed round of about $1 million in 2021, and a growth round with the remaining funding that closed last June. Both rounds were token financings, with the second valuing Bitfinity at $130 million, he added.
OKX Ventures invests in next-generation Web3 full-stack interoperability infrastructure based on ZKP Polyhed
OKX Ventures announces investment in Polyhedra Network. It is reported that Polyhedra Network is the next generation Web3 full-stack interoperability infrastructure based on ZKP, and has designed and implemented the zkBridge protocol, providing a trustless and efficient cross-chain infrastructure for Layer1 and Layer2 interoperability. In addition, Polyhedra Network also launched zkBridge Mainnet Alpha, distributed proof system deVirgo, and the Bitcoin interoperability protocol based on zkBridge.
Dora, the founder of OKX Ventures, said that he is very happy to participate in the investment of the full-stack interoperability infrastructure Polyhedra. The team is creative in the ZKP proof mechanism and invented the advanced deVirgo and paraPlonk ZK proof systems, taking into account ZK interoperability. and scalability. The team is committed to realizing the beautiful vision of Web2 and Web3 world interconnection and bringing new user increments to the industry.
CeFi
Monetary infrastructure B2B trading market AbbeyCross completed US$6.5 million in financing, with Bank of New York Mellon participating in the investment
Monetary infrastructure B2B trading and compliance market AbbeyCross announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$6.5 million, led by Valar Ventures, with participation from BNY Mellon (BNY Mellon), Third Prime and Gaingels. AbbeyCross mainly cooperates with global banks and currency suppliers The new funding will be used to further develop and Deploy its ABX Sync innovation platform. Odaily Planet Daily previously reported that AbbeyCross completed a US$2.47 million seed round of financing in August 2022, with Third Prime leading the investment, Communitas Capital and 11 strategic angel investors participating. (finextra)
Crypto custody and staking service provider Finoa completes $15 million in financing
Finoa, a crypto custody and staking service provider, announced the completion of $15 million in financing, led by Maven 11 Capital and Balderton Capital, with participation from Blue Bay Ventures, Signature Ventures, Coparion and Venture Stars. It is reported that the staking business now accounts for nearly 60% of Finoa’s total revenue. The company supports over 10 blockchains and is the third largest validator of the modular blockchain Celestia. (The Block) According to previous news, Finoa completed a $22 million Series A round of financing in April 21, led by Balderton Capital, with existing investors Coparion, Venture Stars, Signature Ventures and an undisclosed investor participating.
Web3 data infrastructure Entangle completes US$4 million in financing, with participation from Big Brain Holdings and others
Entangle, a customizable and interoperable data infrastructure built for Web3 and institutions, announced the completion of a total of $4 million in seed and private financing from Big Brain Holdings, Launch Code Capital, LBank Labs, Skynet EGLD Capital, Cogient Ventures, Owl Ventures, Faculty Group, Seier Capital, 1NVST, Sharding Capital, Agnostic, Castrum Capital, Terra Nova, Nxgen, MH Ventures, Contango, and Crypto Times participated in the investment. Entangle plans to use the new funds to enhance its protocol technology and market strategy, expand its global influence, and strengthen its role in the field of cross-chain and interoperable data.
Magic Square completes $24 million in token fundraising and will soon be listed on Bybit
According to official news, multi-chain encryption application store Magic Square announced that its token SQR has completed a token fundraising of US$24 million and will be listed on Bybit at 4:00 am (UTC) on January 11, 2024.
DeFi
Solana ecological DeFi platform Saros completed a $3.75 million private placement round of financing
Solana ecological DeFi platform Saros announced the completion of a US$3.75 million private placement round, with participation from Solana Ventures, Hashed, Spartan, Arche Fund, GBV, Assym, IF, Genblock, K300, Cryptomind, Kyros and Evernew.
DeFi lending protocol Altitude completed US$6.1 million in financing, with participation from GSR, Flow Ventures and others
DeFi lending protocol Altitude announced the completion of a US$6.1 million seed round of financing, including the previously completed US$2.1 million Pre-Seed round of financing, and a new round of US$4 million in financing from Tioga Capital, New Form Capital, Flow Ventures, UDHC, GSR, Owl Ventures and others participated in the investment. At present, Altitude has completed on-chain testing and will soon enter the closed testing phase, which will be available to whitelist addresses before being fully released. It is reported that Altitude is a protocol for managing DeFi loans and collateral. When users borrow money through Altitude, the protocol will manage loans and collateral in real time based on market conditions to provide the best loan interest rate.
Decentralized risk hedging strategy management company Umoja completes US$2 million in financing
Umoja, a decentralized risk hedging strategy management company, completed US$2 million in financing, with participation from Quantstamp, Blockchain Founders Fund, Orange DAO, Hyperithm, Psalion, Blizzard (Avalanche) and others. The company was founded by Robby Greenfield, former head of social impact business at ConsenSys. It aims to help users insure their market losses like a hedge fund to ensure their financial health, and introduce asset risk management in the DeFi field. Currently, the company mainly serves In the field of cryptocurrency, it plans to expand its decentralized hedging model to more digital asset fields such as digital bonds, real estate and commodities in the future.
RWA lending platform Kasu completes US$3 million in seed round financing, led by Woodstock and others
CoinVoice recently learned that, according to GlobeNewswire, RWA lending platform Kasu announced the completion of a US$3 million seed round of financing, led by Woodstock, Morningstar Ventures and Faculty Group, Cypher Capital, Matterblock, Andromeda Capital, NxGen, Rarestone Ventures, Asteroid Capital and Optic Capital, etc. Participate in investment. Funds from this round of financing will be used to advance the Kasu innovation platform and optimize the company's cash flow to reduce credit risk and provide risk management and returns.
It is reported that KASU is a decentralized platform that connects DeFi liquidity providers and real-world yield providers, providing on-chain yields by leveraging real-world commercial borrowers to provide real-world cash flow and security.
Cross-chain DeFi protocol Entangle announced the completion of US$4 million in financing, Big Brain Holdi
Cross-chain DeFi protocol Entangle announced the completion of US$4 million in seed and private placement rounds, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Launch Code Capital, LBank Labs, Skynet EGLD Capital, Cogient Ventures, Owl Ventures, Faculty Group, Seier Capital and other institutions.
GameFi
ArenaX Labs completes $6 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures
ArenaX Labs, the developer of AI Arena, announced the completion of US$6 million in financing, which will be used to develop a PvP fighting platform. Framework Ventures led the investment, with participation from SevenX Ventures, FunPlus/Xterio and Moore Strategic Ventures. It is reported that AI Arena allows users to train their own AI characters to fight. The outcome of each battle depends on the player's skills in training, and is designed to help users understand the operation and learning process of artificial intelligence.
NFT liquidity solution and seller gamification marketplace Eesee completes US$2.85 million in financing
NFT liquidity solution and seller gamification market Eesee announced the completion of US$2.85 million in financing. This financing includes US$1.1 million in seed round financing and US$1.75 million in private placement round financing from SevenX Ventures, Maven Capital, MetaBros, Contango Digital Assets, BasementDAO, etc. Participated in the investment and also reached partnerships with Ape Terminal, ApeCoin, Polygon and Chainlink.
Web3
OKX Ventures publicly announces lead investment in BeWater
OKX Ventures announced today that it has completed its investment in BeWater. As a web3 Venture Studio with rich experience, it will focus on supporting early-stage start-up projects and is committed to building a strong Web3 product ecosystem. It can quickly invite international developers to participate in hackathons in 10 minutes. Activity.
To date, it has successfully completed more than 100 Workshop/Demo Day/Hackerathon and other activities, focusing on multiple programming languages such as Solidity, Rebase and Move, and also provides technology development stacks for mainstream public chains, including Starknet, Bitcoin and Polkadot. At the event, more than 25,000 GitHub certified developers and other engineering talent from more than 50 countries contributed to innovative projects. As a Web3 Venture Studio, BeWater has rich experience and professional guidance. In the just-concluded "ABCDE BTC Hacker Training Camp", BeWater has achieved phased progress for projects in eight major tracks, such as 7 BTC ecological projects in just ten days. 's immersive training camp was oversubscribed.
AI data market Ta-da completes US$3.5 million in financing, with participation from Morningstar Ventures and others
Ta-da, an AI data market with a gamified Web3 application model as its core, completed US$3.5 million in financing, with participation from Morningstar Ventures, MultiversX, GBV Capital, XVentures, NxGen and Spark Digital Capital. It is reported that Ta-da is incubated by Vivoka, a company developing speech recognition solutions.
Web3 product development studio Pontem raises $6 million in funding
Web3 product development studio Pontem completed US$6 million in financing. This round of financing was co-led by Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Pantera Capital, Aptos Foundation, Wintermute, Altonomy, Shima Capital and Kraken Ventures. Pontem plans to use the funding from this round to expand the use of the Move programming language beyond the Aptos and Sui blockchains by enabling developers to build applications that are compatible with both the Ethereum Virtual Machine and Move. The latest funding round brings Pontem’s total raised to $10.5 million.
other
Ethereum aggregation proxy protocol Rocket3 has completed a seed round of US$1.2 million and started its first round of community fundraising.
The on-chain aggregation proxy protocol Rocket3 will conduct its first round of community fundraising at 21:00 on January 8, 2024 (UTC+8). This round of fundraising will be used for multi-chain development and market promotion of the protocol.
It is reported that Rocket3 aims to provide on-chain collective interaction for the ETH mainnet and other networks to help users save up to 80% of gas fees. Prior to this, Rocket3 has completed a US$1.2 million Pre-seed round of financing, funded by SOSV and Bex Venture and three other institutions.
AI-driven Web3 tracking platform TrendX completes US$1 million in seed round financing
TrendX, an AI-driven Web3 tracking platform, announced the completion of a US$1 million seed round of financing, with participation from Foster Labs, Web3Link, Coresky, Tripod Capital, CatcherVC, MIIX Capital and others.
Blockchain social platform Freechat completes US$80 million in financing
Blockchain social platform Freechat has recently completed US$80 million in financing, with a post-money valuation of US$800 million. The investor has not been disclosed. It is reported that Freechat was founded in 2022 and completed a US$2 million seed round of financing in August 2022. In early 2023, Freechat will officially launch global servers.
Quora has raised $75 million from a16z, funds will be used to accelerate Poe's development
Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo announced in a post that Quora has raised $75 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), valuing the business at $500 million. The funding will primarily be used to accelerate the growth of AI chat platform Poe, specifically through its recently launched creator monetization program that pays bot creators.
Quora last week hit its highest ever usage, with more than 400 million unique visitors per month. With the exception of Poe, Quora is cash flow positive, so any new funding will be focused on Poe's growth. Poe's goal is to be the best way for consumers to chat with a variety of AI products, as well as provide developers with the easiest way to build AI chat products and reach large audiences. This includes using existing models and uploaded files to create a bot, or training the model yourself.
