infra

Venture capital fund Team8 announced the completion of a new fundraise of $365 million. This round of fundraising includes $265 million for Team8 Capital's third fund, as well as over $100 million for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies.The new fund will focus on investing in seed and Series A stage AI-native companies, covering areas such as cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, and fintech, with a particular emphasis on infrastructure projects that help businesses deploy AI while ensuring security, governance, and control capabilities. Team8 currently manages assets close to $2 billion.Previously, Team8 has co-invested in several cryptocurrency and AI companies, including cryptocurrency institutional wallet developer Curv, AI compliance platform IVIX, and AI data leak prevention company Jazz.

According to Forbes, AI data infrastructure company Databricks announced the completion of a $5 billion strategic financing round, led by Coatue, with participation from Blackstone, MGX, and T. Rowe Price. Sixth Street Growth joined as a new investor, bringing the post-financing valuation of the company to $190 billion, higher than the previously disclosed valuation plan of $188 billion. The funds will be used to advance AI infrastructure layout, product development, and potential acquisitions.Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi stated that the company's current annual revenue run rate has exceeded $7 billion, with a year-on-year growth of over 80%. In terms of AI Agent infrastructure, Databricks believes that the scale of AI-generated software will significantly increase in the future, and each AI application will require database support.

Chip giant AMD plans to raise up to $5 billion through a four-part bond issuance, which, if completed, will become one of the largest bond financings in the company's history.It is reported that AMD is increasing capital investment to meet the rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence computing. Previously, the company had reached significant cooperation agreements with Anthropic and Microsoft (MSFT), committing to provide up to $5 billion in support to Anthropic.The funds raised from this bond issuance will be used for general corporate purposes, including potential debt repayment. As of now, AMD has approximately $875 million in bonds maturing next month.The market believes that AMD's recent continuous expansion in AI chips and computing infrastructure will provide financial support for further investment in AI business, expanding the supply chain, and promoting strategic cooperation.

In July, the US CPI rose by 0.1% month-on-month and 3.4% year-on-year, while the core CPI increased by 2.5% year-on-year, overall in line with market expectations. As the market continues to assess the Federal Reserve's subsequent policy path, the impact of macro changes on asset allocation and trading strategies is continuously strengthening, further enhancing institutions' focus on liquidity management and trading execution efficiency.Against this backdrop, Gate institutions are continuously improving professional trading infrastructure. According to the transparency report released by the platform in July, Gate CrossEx added one mainstream exchange and 23 trading pairs, launched RPI Orders, reduced the highest fees of multiple exchanges by 50%, and introduced new APIs for market data, funding rates, batch order cancellations, and several WebSocket features; by optimizing concurrent order placement and execution feedback delays, system performance improved by 50%, while the launch of Colo services further reduced trading latency.In addition, SuperLink continues to optimize Fireblocks Gas management and settlement processes, further enhancing institutions' cross-platform asset management and trading collaboration capabilities. In the future, Gate institutions will continue to advance infrastructure upgrades around core capabilities such as trading execution, liquidity, and cross-platform collaboration, providing professional investors with more efficient and stable institutional-level trading services.

On August 12, the enterprise blockchain infrastructure provider Aventus announced the official launch of Aventus Cloud node sales. The program aims to allow individuals and institutions to run nodes using available computing resources, expanding participation in the Aventus network infrastructure.Founded in 2017, Aventus has provided blockchain infrastructure for enterprise applications in industries such as aviation, energy, and telecommunications, and has become a Polkadot parachain. Aventus Cloud will go live on the mainnet in April 2026, with nodes capable of processing network activity verification, and eligible operators can earn network rewards. The current price for Genesis Tranche node licenses is $1,755, with a final network plan of up to 40,000 nodes, and over 2,500 nodes are currently active.

According to Fortune, Bank of America announced a $250 billion infrastructure investment plan on Wednesday, committing to invest in key infrastructure areas in the United States over the next year. The investment scope covers multiple fields including data centers and computing power, renewable energy generation, energy storage, natural gas, transmission networks, and critical minerals and mining, with the goal of supporting energy security, job growth, and economic competitiveness.

According to Crowdfund Insider, Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings disclosed in its latest quarterly SEC filing that it has pledged 18,750 BTC as collateral for two Bitcoin-backed loans, with a total principal of $750 million.The financing provided by Coinbase Credit includes refinancing of an existing $150 million credit line and an additional $300 million; Two Prime Lending also provided a $300 million loan. Both loans have been fully drawn, with a combined financing cost of approximately 7.56%, primarily maturing in August 2028.The pledged 18,750 BTC was valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time of the transaction. If the price of Bitcoin falls and the collateral ratio drops below the agreed level, MARA may face additional collateral requirements; otherwise, the related BTC is at risk of liquidation. The new funds will primarily be used for general corporate purposes and to support MARA's acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power.The transaction values the company at approximately $1.5 billion, with Long Ridge owning a natural gas power plant in Ohio, USA, with an expected installed capacity of 505 MW, as well as over 1,600 acres of industrial land. MARA plans to further develop the area into a base for Bitcoin mining, AI, and high-performance computing infrastructure.

According to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute plans to invest approximately $1 billion over the next five years in high-frequency trading and AI data center infrastructure to expand into traditional financial markets such as stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange. The related expenditures are expected to be funded by retained earnings.Currently, the non-crypto market contributes about 10% of the company's revenue, with a goal of increasing this proportion to over 50% by the end of 2027. Wintermute's average daily trading volume this year has decreased from about $15 billion last year to $10 billion.

NVIDIA announced a partnership with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to establish an independent financing platform.The platform aims to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital in the long term to support AI infrastructure development.

According to The Information, AI infrastructure startup Trajectory announced the completion of a $40 million financing round, with a post-money valuation of $300 million, co-invested by Sequoia Capital. The specific financing round and other investors have not been disclosed.Trajectory was founded by researchers from tech companies such as Google and Apple, and primarily helps businesses customize open-source AI models for specific business needs, as well as optimize the software toolchain that supports AI Agent operations (referred to as "Agent Harness"). As the costs of using closed-source large models continue to rise, more and more companies are looking for alternatives: on one hand, they are reducing costs by fine-tuning and customizing open-source models, and on the other hand, they are improving the Agent execution framework to enable AI models to more effectively call tools and execute tasks.This trend is driving a new wave of entrepreneurial enthusiasm around model adaptation and Agent infrastructure. Trajectory aims to address key issues faced by enterprises in deploying AI Agents, including model performance optimization, task execution reliability, and adaptation to enterprise scenarios. The company hopes to help businesses build more efficient and cost-effective AI applications by providing model customization and Agent operation infrastructure.Investors believe that as AI evolves from simple chatbots to Agents capable of autonomously executing complex tasks, a new layer of infrastructure around model optimization and Agent engineering will become an important market. In recent years, Sequoia has also continued to increase its investment in the AI infrastructure sector, including investments in AI Agents and enterprise AI applications.

According to Fortune, the prediction market trading infrastructure startup River Markets announced the completion of a $8.5 million seed round financing, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, and Qube Research Technologies.The new funds will primarily be used to expand the engineering team, enhance the speed and security of the trading system, and grow institutional clients, while also developing new tools to support large-scale fund management and cross-platform trading.In recent years, prediction markets have attracted the attention of institutional investors. Industry platform data shows that institutional trading demand is rapidly increasing. For example, the prediction market platform Kalshi previously stated that its institutional trading volume grew by approximately 800% within six months. Meanwhile, market participants have begun to hedge risks through prediction markets, including establishing trading positions around real economic variables such as carbon emission allowances and GPU rental prices.

Bitcoin.com published an article stating that the model of Web3 startups conducting corporate pilots by paying traditional financial institutions "is a dead end," with 95% of pilot projects failing to reach production environments. Web2 companies only want the idle venture capital and revenue sharing from startups, rather than their open-source innovations. The article argues that true defensiveness comes from a "structural moat"—compliance licenses, deep network liquidity, or distribution lock-ins that Web2 engineering teams cannot replicate.The article cites recent cases: Stripe was acquired for $1.1 billion after proving an annual cross-border transaction volume of $5 billion with Bridge, and Robinhood acquired Bitstamp for $200 million to gain 50 global regulatory licenses and institutional liquidity, rather than maintaining long-term vendor relationships. The article predicts that the next round of B2C expansion will present an 80/20 pattern: 80% of retail liquidity will be controlled by 3 to 5 Web2/fintech giants such as Visa, Stripe, Robinhood, PayPal, and BlackRock, providing compliance and fiat entry; 20% will be an unlicensed DeFi sandbox for validating initial product-market fit. The growth path for startups should be to first validate PMF in the DeFi sandbox, then integrate or sell to the few Web2 gateways controlling the 80% distribution layer. The article believes that the current protocol cancellations and wave of startup closures are part of a "necessary market cleanup."

Morgan Stanley announced the launch of the "U.S. Innovation Infrastructure Initiative," which aims to drive approximately $1.5 trillion in capital raising and investment activities over the next 10 years to support U.S. economic growth.The initiative will focus on strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and semiconductors, and will promote the construction of digital and physical infrastructure.

NVIDIA and its partners will create dedicated funding pools for artificial intelligence infrastructure customers to meet market demand.

According to TechFundingNews, AI infrastructure company Nscale is preparing for an IPO in the U.S., which could start as early as September this year. The company has disclosed to potential investors that its cumulative contracted revenue has reached approximately $51 billion. Currently, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are serving as advisory firms for Nscale's potential IPO, but discussions are still ongoing, and the listing date may be delayed.Nscale is a company spun off from the cryptocurrency mining company Arkon Energy, primarily focusing on AI data centers, GPU computing power, and energy infrastructure. In July of this year, it announced the acquisition of distributed AI software company Anyscale for approximately $1.65 billion, with clients including Coinbase, Runway, and Bedrock Robotics. Previously, it was reported that AI infrastructure Nscale completed a $2 billion Series C financing round, achieving a valuation of $14.6 billion, led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries, with participation from NVIDIA, Lenovo, and Nokia.

SK Hynix stated in a recent article that the competition in AI is shifting from the performance of individual chips to the design and operation of the entire infrastructure architecture. The competitiveness of AI data centers no longer depends on individual components, but on whether the five key elements of computing, memory, storage, networking, and power cooling can be seamlessly integrated.The article points out that the continuous expansion of AI model scales has led to a surge in demand for computing power and data movement. Training requires repeatedly reading massive datasets, while inference relies on quickly retrieving user request information, both of which place higher demands on the system architecture of data centers. At the memory level, HBM, server DRAM, and others have formed a hierarchical system, each undertaking different bandwidth and capacity tasks. At the networking level, as large-scale training and inference rely on multi-server parallel processing, networking has become a key factor determining the scalability of data centers. System design is shifting from single-server to whole rack and cluster-level expansion.According to Omdia's forecast, the AI data center chip market will grow from $123 billion in 2024 to $207 billion in 2025, reaching $286 billion by 2030. SK Hynix also mentioned that Microsoft's Fairwater data center in Wisconsin is about the length of five football fields, indicating that infrastructure is being deployed on a larger scale. SK Hynix emphasizes that memory is becoming a key layer connecting computing and data.

Bitcoin mining company MARA has completed two loans, obtaining $600 million in new debt after pledging 18,750 bitcoins to expand its power generation and AI infrastructure business. The collateral was valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time of the transaction. The total principal of the two loans is $750 million, with Coinbase Credit providing $450 million, which includes refinancing of the existing $150 million credit line and an additional $300 million; Two Prime Lending provides another $300 million, and both loans have been fully drawn.The interest rate on the Coinbase loan is the midpoint of the Federal Reserve's target rate range plus 3.875 percentage points, maturing on August 4, 2028; the Two Prime loan has a fixed interest rate of 7.65%, maturing on August 3, 2028. If the principal remains unchanged, the annual interest expense for both loans is approximately $56.7 million. MARA stated that the loan funds will be used for general corporate purposes, including paying part of the cash consideration for the acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power LLC. The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $1.5 billion, and Long Ridge owns a 505-megawatt gas power plant and over 1,600 acres of industrial land, which MARA plans to use for power generation, bitcoin mining, and potential AI and high-performance computing parks.

According to Dealstreetasia, Singapore-based AI infrastructure startup Acrab announced the completion of a $130 million Series B funding round, with participation from Vertex Growth and others. To date, the total funding raised has exceeded $480 million.The company has built a full-stack AI computing platform that includes self-developed chips, edge AI models, and software orchestration to support the real-time operation and task execution of AI Agents. The new funds will be used to expand product capacity, enhance the technology ecosystem, and accelerate the development of the next-generation AI computing platform.