Last week, there were a total of 35 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market, with a cumulative financing of approximately 160 million USD | Investment and Financing Weekly Report

Organizer: Cookies, RootData

According to incomplete statistics from RootData, during the period from April 22 to April 28, 2024, there were a total of 35 public financing events in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, with a total financing amount of approximately $160 million.

Since November 2021, Binance has launched 30 Launchpool projects, with a total of 288 institutional and individual investors participating in the primary market. Among them, Binance Labs ranked first by investing in 21 projects. This institution has 190 portfolios, and the Launchpool investment rate is 11.05%. However, in the recent 8 Launchpool projects, only 2 received investment from Binance Labs (Ethena, Renzo).

For nearly 30 Binance Launchpool projects, over 5 projects received investments from Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, Polychain, Dragonfly, and GSR.

After analyzing the portfolios of 288 investors, it was found that the average number of Binance Launchpool projects in their portfolios does not exceed 2%. Meanwhile, the investment rate of Gemini Frontier Fund, Draper Dragon, Lightspeed Venture, and Folius Ventures exceeds 5%.

As an individual investor, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick has an investment rate of 8.77%. He invested in Ethena in 2 rounds, and also invested in projects like Hashflow, AltLayer, and Aevo. EthHub co-founder Anthony Sassal also achieved an investment rate of 8.57%.

In a16z Crypto's portfolio, only 3 projects are listed on Binance, which may be related to a16z's commitment to exploring the business boundaries and regulatory innovations of Web3. Its latest portfolio and incubator include several crypto projects related to geography, privacy, and food beauty, such as KIKI World and Setter.

*（List of projects with financing greater than $5 million last week, data source: * Rootdata）

I. Infrastructure

1. Shiba Inu completes $12 million token financing for Layer3 network development
Shiba Inu raised $12 million through the TREAT token to develop its new privacy-focused Layer 3 blockchain. Investors include Polygon Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Woodstock Fund, DWF Ventures, Stake Capital, and Comma 3 Ventures. (Source link)

2. Blockchain development team Movement Labs completes $38 million Series A financing, led by Polychain Capital
Blockchain development team Movement Labs completed $38 million in Series A financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Hack VC, Foresight Ventures, Placeholder, Archetype, Maven 11, Robot Ventures, Figment Capital, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, OKX Ventures, dao5, and Aptos Labs. This funding will support the company's introduction of Facebook's Move virtual machine to Ethereum, addressing smart contract vulnerabilities and improving transaction throughput.

According to Web3 asset data platform RootData, Movement Labs was established in 2023 and previously completed a $3.4 million seed round in September 2023. In addition to its flagship product Movement L2, Movement Labs will also launch Move Stack, an execution layer framework compatible with rollup frameworks such as Optimism, Polygon, and Arbitrum. (Source link)

3. Modular data layer CARV completes $10 million Series A financing, led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures
CARV, which provides a modular data layer for the gaming and AI industries, announced the completion of $10 million in Series A financing, led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures, with participation from Consensys (MetaMask), OKX Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, No Limit Holdings, Draper Dragon, Arweave, LiquidX, and MARBLEX.

It is reported that this funding will be used to build a cross-chain modular data layer and promote data economy innovation. CARV's ecosystem has an average daily active address count exceeding 500,000, making it one of the top three most active ecosystems on chains like Linea, opBNB, zkSync, and Ronin. (Source link)

4. Zero-knowledge proof verification layer Aligned Layer completes $20 million Series A financing, led by Hack VC
Aligned Layer, a decentralized zero-knowledge proof verification layer for Ethereum developed based on EigenLayer, announced the completion of $20 million in Series A financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from dao5, L2IV, and Nomad Capital.

It is reported that the Aligned Layer mainnet is planned to launch in the second quarter of 2024. As EigenLayer AVS, Aligned Layer provides Ethereum with a new infrastructure for affordable zero-knowledge proof verification for all proof systems. (Source link)

5. Shared security project Othentic completes $4 million seed round financing, led by Breyer Capital
Othentic, a project focused on shared security for distributed systems, announced the completion of $4 million in seed round financing, co-led by Finality Capital Partners and Breyer Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, HashKey Capital, Collider Ventures, BanklessVC, Robot Ventures, Everstake, and PUNK DAO. It is reported that Othentic aims to launch systems with underlying shared security by providing self-deploying infrastructure, thereby creating novel distributed computing services, including facilitating innovative work on EigenLayer and Babylon. Its Othentic Stack allows AVS developers to self-deploy customized computing services and run arbitrary computing tasks in a trustless execution environment.

Additionally, Othentic introduced a framework for Stateless Rollups to support flexible and secure off-chain computation. Stateless Rollups are computing networks that serve other networks or applications without being constrained by any specific blockchain. This framework helps create coprocessors, ZK provers, privacy-preserving computing, decentralized order books, AI inference networks, vulnerability prevention systems, and other new services. (Source link)

6. Wallet developer Turnkey completes $15 million financing, led by Lightspeed Faction
Wallet developer Turnkey, co-founded by two former Coinbase employees, completed $15 million in financing, led by Lightspeed Faction and Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Figment Capital, and Mirana Ventures.

It is reported that the Turnkey product suite was publicly launched last August, with Alchemy being its main customer. (Source link)

7. Decentralized AI platform Prime Intellect completes $5.5 million seed round financing, led by CoinFund
Decentralized AI platform and protocol Prime Intellect announced the completion of $5.5 million in seed round financing, co-led by Distributed Global and CoinFund, with participation from Compound and several angel investors.

It is reported that the new funding will be used to build a computing platform for decentralized training across instances and to achieve co-ownership of AI models through contributions of computing, code, data, capital, or expertise. (Source link)

8. DePIN project Natix completes $4.6 million financing, led by Borderless Capital
The decentralized infrastructure network (DePIN) focused on map data, Natix Network, completed a strategic financing of $4.6 million, led by Borderless Capital, with Tioga Capital co-leading, and participation from Laser Digital (a subsidiary of Nomura), Big Brain Holdings, Escape Velocity, IoTeX, WAGMI Ventures, and Moonrock Capital, as well as angel investors including Figment Capital managing partner James Parillo, Bitget managing director Gracy Chen, bitcrunch CEO Vijay Pravin Maharajan, and Paul Taylor. This round of financing brings Natix's total funding to $9.6 million.

Natix also announced today that it will launch its native token NATIX on the Solana blockchain in the second quarter of this year, and it is expected to airdrop 1 billion NATIX tokens to users in batches, accounting for 1% of the total token supply of 100 billion. (Source link)

9. Bitcoin-focused stablecoin company OpenDelta completes $2.15 million financing, led by 6th Man Ventures
Bitcoin-focused stablecoin company OpenDelta announced the completion of $2.15 million in pre-seed financing, led by 6th Man Ventures.

The company's CEO Konstantin Wünscher stated that OpenDelta aims to create a stable value denominated in fiat currency using Bitcoin. OpenDelta is one of the first companies to establish tokenization technology for the Bitcoin Runes era. The flagship token planned by OpenDelta, USDO, will maintain its dollar value by collateralizing Bitcoin and is scheduled for launch in May, initially available only to users on the waiting list in a closed test. Additionally, OpenDelta plans to expand Runes technology to other layers of Bitcoin. (Source link)

10. ZK protocol Hinkal completes $1.4 million strategic round financing, led by SALT Fund
ZK protocol Hinkal completed $1.4 million in strategic round financing, led by SALT Fund, with participation from Draper Associates, SNZ Capital, and Peer VC. Hinkal co-founder and CTO Nika Koreli stated that the structure of this round of financing is a simple future equity (SAFE) and token warrant agreement, which values Hinkal at $70 million. (Source link)

II. CeFi

1. Turkish fintech company Midas completes $45 million Series A financing, led by Portage
Turkish fintech startup Midas completed $45 million in Series A financing, led by Portage, with participation from the International Finance Corporation, Spark Capital, Earlybird Digital East Fund, and Revo Capital.

It is reported that Midas will use this round of financing to launch new products, including cryptocurrency trading, mutual funds, and savings accounts, and plans to double its workforce to over 400 people and expand into emerging markets. (Source link)

2. Crypto trading aggregator TOKERO completes $1.4 million private round financing
Crypto trading aggregator TOKERO announced the completion of $1.4 million in private round financing, with participation from a group of angel investors and venture capital (VC) funds, but the project has not disclosed specific investor information. TOKERO aims to bring together CEX, DEX, and CryptoATM services into a single simple and accessible platform for users to access the digital economy. (Source link)

III. DeFi

1. Liquidity re-staking protocol YieldNest completes $5.2 million new round of financing, with participation from Faculty Group
Liquidity re-staking protocol YieldNest announced that it has completed a new round of financing totaling $5.2 million, with participation from Faculty Group, Backed VC, Proof of Capital, Rana, Mozaik Capital, Contango Digital Assets, LVT Capital, Insignius Capital, and several angel investors.

It is reported that YieldNest is a liquidity re-staking protocol supported by EigenLayer, providing simplified, risk-adjusted liquidity re-staking strategies for users to gain controlled investment exposure to AVS categories. (Source link)

3. Scallop receives strategic investment from DWF Labs
Sui ecosystem lending protocol Scallop announced that it has received a strategic investment from DWF Labs, with the specific investment amount undisclosed.

It is reported that as part of this collaboration, DWF Labs will serve as Scallop's primary liquidity provider across various centralized exchanges and will also support over-the-counter (OTC) trading. (Source link)

IV. Gaming

1. GameFi project Uncharted completes $1.7 million seed round financing, led by Shima Capital
GameFi project Uncharted announced that it has completed $1.7 million in seed round financing, led by Shima Capital, with participation from The Spartan Group, Double Peak Group, Devmons, 32-Bit Ventures, LiquidX, D64 Ventures, Flying Falcon, and several angel investors.

It is reported that Uncharted focuses on building a cryptocurrency-based gaming layer, providing a platform for game creators and studios. Currently, it has a game studio and a product center that supports game creators. (Source link)

2. Web3 gaming platform Iskra receives strategic investment from Animoca Brands
Web3 gaming platform Iskra announced that it has received a strategic investment from Animoca Brands, with the specific amount undisclosed. The press release states that Animoca Brands joining Iskra's list of strategic investors will enable the project to seek more global opportunities and visibility through Animoca Brands' diversified global portfolio.

According to crypto data platform RootData, Web3 community gaming platform Iskra completed $40 million in financing, with participation from Krust Universe. (Source link)

3. Web3 gaming platform Puffverse completes $3 million financing, led by Animoca Brands
Web3 gaming platform Puffverse completed $3 million in financing, led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Arcane Group, Spartan Group, Foresight Ventures, HashKey Capital, Sky Mavis, and Xu Family Office.

It is reported that Puffverse will migrate to Ronin to launch its first casual party game centered around the Puff IP, where users can compete in multiplayer matches, use a UGC editor to create their own levels, and interact socially in a large world. The platform plans to issue its platform token this year, which can be used in multiple games within Puffverse, and aims to achieve game cloudification and upgrade to a cloud gaming platform next year. (Source link)

4. ZK chain game ecosystem Tevaera completes $5 million financing, led by Laser Digital
The ZK Stack-based chain game ecosystem Tevaera completed $5 million in financing, led by Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Nomura Securities, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Matter Labs, Draper Dragon, Faculty Group, Crypto.com Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Selini Capital, and DWF Labs.

It is reported that Tevaera plans to launch two new games and the first decentralized L3 game chain on zkSync. Tevaera attracted over 850,000 "soulbound" players last year through its first multiplayer game Teva Run, Guardian NFT, and comprehensive marketplace Teva Market. (Source link)

5. Chain game studio InfiniGods completes $8 million Series A financing, led by Pantera Capital
Chain game studio InfiniGods completed $8 million in Series A financing, exclusively invested by Pantera Capital. This financing will be used to develop its mobile game King Of Destiny.

In May 2022, InfiniGods completed $9 million in seed round financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Framework Ventures, Jefferson Capital, Animoca Brands, and Double Peak. The financing will be used to release three games in 2022, including one with in-game utility NFTs. (Source link)

6. Chess strategy game Anichess completes $1.8 million financing, led by Sfermion and Amber Group
Chess strategy game Anichess, supported by Animoca Brands, completed $1.8 million in financing, led by Sfermion and Amber Group, with participation from Fenbushi Capital, Aspen Digital, and SNZ Capital. The new funds will be used to finance game development, marketing activities, and team expansion.

Anichess is a blockchain-based chess game, developed in collaboration with Play Magnus Group, a leader in the chess industry, featuring PvE gameplay with a betting and earning ecosystem. The second phase is expected to launch in late Q1 2024, introducing PvP gameplay. (Source link)

7. Chain game Engines of Fury completes new round of financing, with participation from Animoca Brands
Blockchain game Engines of Fury announced that it has completed a new round of financing, with participation from Animoca Brands, though the specific amount has not been disclosed. Engines of Fury is a free-to-play evacuation shooting blockchain game, and the project is about to launch the IDO event for its native token FURY. (Source link)

8. Web3 3D LBS game L3E7 completes $10 million financing, led by SevenX Ventures
Web3 3D LBS game L3E7 (Lagrange3: Earth's 7WIN) announced the completion of a total of $10 million in angel round and Series A financing, with the angel round led by LongLing Capital and the Series A round co-led by Spartan Group and SevenX Ventures, with participation from Kekecely, Foresight Ventures, OKX Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Vertex Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Meta Labs, Marvellous Creature, Giantwood, Mantle EcoFund, BitValue, Hailstone Labs, LiquidX, and Buzzone.

It is reported that L3E7 features industry-leading game visuals and supports the minting of exclusive character NFTs. The core team members have over 20 years of experience in AAA game development and are dedicated to creating the world's first PvEvP (Player vs Environment vs Player) game that fully models global cities and streets in 3D. (Source link)

V. Social

1. Web3 social protocol PairedWorld completes $1.5 million financing, BlackRock venture partner joins its advisory board
Web3 social protocol PairedWorld announced the completion of $1.5 million in financing, with details of the financing not disclosed. Additionally, BlackRock venture partner Paul Taylor has joined its advisory board. It is reported that PairedWorld aims to enhance real-world social interactions through blockchain technology while providing new data avenues for consumer brands through real-world interactions (RWI).

The announcement states that Paul Taylor's joining the PairedWorld board is expected to significantly promote the protocol's development. His extensive expertise in fintech and blockchain aligns with PairedWorld's mission. (Source link)

VI. Others

1. One-stop Web3 search engine Adot secures $6 million in funding to build decentralized AI search
Decentralized AI search engine company Adot (a.xyz), founded by former Google core team engineers, today announced the successful completion of a Pre-A round financing of $3 million. This round of investment was led by Hash Global, with gCC (gumi Cryptos Capital) and Xin Family co-investing.

To date, Adot has raised a total of $6 million. Other notable investors include SevenX Ventures, Mask Network, Var Capital, and Mixmarvel. It is reported that this funding will be used to advance the development of the decentralized AI search engine. (Source link)

2. Crypto rewards website and browser extension Moso completes $2 million seed round financing, with participation from CoinList
Crypto rewards website and browser extension Moso announced on the X platform that it has completed $2 million in seed round financing, with participation from Symbolic Capital, Dao5, P2 Ventures, CoinList, and others, though specific valuation information has not been disclosed.

According to Web3 asset data platform RootData, Moso is a cryptocurrency rewards website and browser extension that allows users to earn their chosen cryptocurrency while shopping from partner merchants. Currently, Moso's partnership areas cover travel, beauty, fashion, and e-commerce. (Source link)

3. Digital content monetization and ownership platform Creator.bid completes new round of financing, with participation from Mechanism Capital
Blockchain and AI-driven digital content monetization and ownership platform Creator.bid announced the completion of a new round of financing, with participation from Mechanism Capital, Zee Prime Capital, Moonrock Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Momentum 6, ID Theory, NxGen.lens, HV Capital, MH Ventures, SkyVision Capital, MQdao, AlfaDAO, Tempo, and Silvermine Capital, though the specific amount has not been disclosed.

It is understood that Creator.bid supports content creators in building AI-driven digital assets to monetize content and manage writing, and also provides tools to enhance creators' autonomy over their work and income management. (Source link)