ventures

The startup focused on robot AI training data, Mecka AI, announced the completion of a total of $60,000,000 in financing, including $25,000,000 in Series A funding completed last November and an additional $35,000,000 in follow-up financing. Both rounds of financing were led by Framework Ventures, with participation from institutions such as Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures.Mecka AI primarily collects human motion data through body sensors, iPhones, and custom hardware, including physical behavior data such as gestures and gait, to train robot AI models. The company's founder and CEO, Josh Gao, stated that its core philosophy is to train robots using human behavior data rather than traditional teleoperation data, thereby enhancing the general capabilities of robots in the real world.According to reports, Mecka AI was founded in 2025 and currently has about 40 employees. The company claims that based on signed contracts, its annual recurring revenue (ARR Run Rate) is expected to reach $100,000,000, but it has not disclosed a specific client list. Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework Ventures, stated that Mecka AI is one of the fastest-growing companies in the institution's investment portfolio.In the future, Mecka AI plans not only to provide training data but also to directly participate in robot model training and deployment, promoting the commercialization of robots in practical scenarios.

According to CoinDesk, South Korea's major brokerage firm Korea Investment & Securities (KIS) and the investment institution OKX Ventures under the cryptocurrency exchange OKX officially signed an agreement on May 29, with both parties investing 80 billion won (approximately 53 million USD) each to acquire 19.6% of the shares of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinone (a total of 39.2%). This transaction is still pending approval from regulatory authorities.It is reported that the total transaction amount of 160 billion won will be conducted through a combination of purchasing existing shares and subscribing to new shares. After the transaction is completed, Coinone's founder and CEO Cha Myunghun will hold 27.8% of the shares, continuing to maintain the status of the largest shareholder and retaining management control; Com2uS Holdings and its affiliates will hold 25%; Korea Investment & Securities and OKX Ventures will jointly become the third-largest shareholders.Korea Investment & Securities stated that it will rely on this equity cooperation to promote the issuance and distribution of tokenized securities (STO), expand corporate virtual asset investment clients, and develop digital asset businesses such as bulk brokerage. In addition, recently, as South Korean regulatory authorities hinted at relaxing the principle of financial asset separation, several traditional financial giants in South Korea, including Samsung Securities and Hana Bank, have been accelerating their efforts to acquire shares in virtual asset exchanges.

According to Gate Ventures' latest weekly report, there has been a significant style shift in global stock markets, with funds rotating from growth sectors to value and defensive assets. The Dow Jones Index rose by 2.22%, and labor market data remains resilient. Macroeconomic indicators show a divergence, with the composite PMI preliminary value rising to a two-year high of 54.4, but input cost pressures still exist. Coupled with the ongoing impact of high interest rates on real estate activity, the economy overall presents a structural state of coexistence between expansion and pressure. The cryptocurrency market has slightly retreated, with BTC down 0.5% and ETH down 1.6%; the total market capitalization declined by 0.4%, remaining flat compared to last week, and market sentiment is in a moderate recovery phase.At the asset and industry level, the top 30 assets averaged a rise of 4.2%, with HYPE and ZEC leading the performance, influenced by factors such as ecosystem expansion, liquidity improvement, and easing regulatory uncertainty. In terms of industry dynamics, on-chain infrastructure and the compliance process continue to advance, with active financing and product iteration in areas such as prediction markets, on-chain derivatives, and payment networks. In terms of investment and financing, a total of 24 transactions were completed last week, disclosing a total financing amount of approximately $532.6 million, with infrastructure and DeFi being the main sectors of flow, and Kalshi securing a single financing of $200 million.Additionally, Variational completed a $50 million Series A financing, AEON completed $8 million in pre-seed financing, while infrastructure and social blocks recorded 12 and 6 transactions, respectively. Overall, against the backdrop of macro volatility and market divergence, capital allocation continues to trend towards long-term infrastructure and real application scenarios.

Jocy@IOSGVC, founding partner of IOSG Ventures, posted on platform X stating that rumors regarding IOSG Ventures depositing UNI and COMP to Binance are false. The related wallet is not an IOSG address, and the Arkham platform has marked the tags "IOSG Ventures" and "Binance Deposit Change Address" with question marks, indicating they are unverified.IOSG has not held or sold any UNI or COMP positions recently.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a wallet suspected to be related to IOSG Ventures (@IOSGVC) deposited 2.7 million UNI (worth $9.23 million) and 114,000 COMP (worth $2.3 million) into Binance. The wallet has realized a loss of $33.08 million on UNI and a loss of $6.68 million on COMP.Ten months ago, the wallet withdrew 5.41 million UNI (worth $5.153 million) and 228,000 COMP (worth $1.129 million) from Binance. Currently, the wallet still holds 2.7 million UNI (worth $9.23 million) and 114,000 COMP (worth $2.29 million).

The new generation Perp DEX PopDEX has announced the completion of a $30 million financing round, led by Foresight Ventures. PopDEX is a trader-centric decentralized perpetual contract trading platform that focuses on capital efficiency, trading experience, and value distribution mechanisms, aiming to build an on-chain derivatives trading platform driven by contributions from real trading.

Web3 fintech startup Jia announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, A100x Ventures, TCG, and Hashed Emergent. So far, Jia has raised a total of $7.3 million.Jia currently operates multiple decentralized lending pools and introduces liquidity through networks such as Base, Stellar, Arbitrum, and Polygon, while using stablecoins for cross-border settlements to reduce the cost and time of cross-border remittances. The new funding will be used to expand features such as business bank accounts and cash flow management.

According to The Block, Bitcoin hardware wallet manufacturer Foundation has completed a new round of financing of $6.4 million, led by Fulgur Ventures with participation from Arche Capital and others, aimed at expanding from Bitcoin self-custody wallets to scenarios such as identity, multi-factor authentication, and AI agent authorization. This round of financing brings the company's total funding to $16.5 million, with valuation and round structure undisclosed.Foundation also announced that its flagship device, Passport Prime, is now available for sale to all users, integrating a Bitcoin hardware wallet, FIDO security key, 2FA storage, confidential information vault, and 50 GB of encrypted storage, emphasizing "human authorization" through dedicated hardware. In addition, the company is expanding the scope of the KeyOS developer platform and plans to launch the KeyOS app store by the end of the second quarter, with initial partners including Cake Wallet.

Crypto financial infrastructure Cycles announced the completion of a $6.4 million seed round financing, led by Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Compound VC, Primitive Ventures, and others. After this round of financing, the total amount raised has reached $8.7 million.The company aims to build a private clearing network for the crypto market and seeks to enhance capital utilization through a "clearing network" mechanism, achieving multi-party net settlement through zero-knowledge proofs and trusted execution environments, thereby reducing counterparty risk and minimizing liquidity consumption.

According to Bloomberg, Moment is a fintech company founded by former Citadel Securities quantitative traders and researchers. After signing partnerships with Edward Jones, LPL Financial, and Hightower Advisors over the past year, the company completed a $78 million financing round, led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Avra also participating.Moment primarily helps financial institutions automate fixed income and equity trading technology. The company's previous financing round was in July of last year, when it raised $36 million.

Stablecoin infrastructure startup Checker announced the completion of an $8 million pre-seed and seed funding round, with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, Airtm, DFS Lab, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity. The project's main business is to help financial institutions launch and scale stablecoins and related products by providing a single API.It is reported that Checker has processed over $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 12 months and plans to use the new funds to expand its network of financial institutions to Brazil, Kenya, Hong Kong, and the United States, while also planning to launch AI agents for customer onboarding, compliance assessments, and treasury operations.

The stablecoin infrastructure startup Checker announced the completion of an $8 million pre-seed and seed funding round, with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, Airtm, DFS Lab, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity.The project's main business is to help financial institutions launch and scale stablecoins and related products by providing a single API. It is reported that Checker has processed over $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 12 months and plans to use the new funds to expand its network of financial institutions to Brazil, Kenya, Hong Kong, and the United States, while also planning to launch AI agents for customer onboarding, compliance assessments, and treasury operations.

According to Gate Ventures' latest weekly report, global markets were significantly pressured last week due to inflation data and rising energy prices. The S&P 500 index initially broke through 7,500 points for the first time, but subsequently fell back as both CPI and PPI data exceeded expectations, leading the market to begin pricing in potential interest rate hike risks. Against this backdrop, the cryptocurrency market also weakened, with BTC dropping 8.1% last week and ETH falling 10.2%. The spot BTC ETF recorded a net outflow of $1 billion, and market sentiment returned to the "panic" range.At the industry level, institutional investments in stablecoins and on-chain financial infrastructure are accelerating. JPMorgan is advancing a tokenized money market fund aimed at stablecoin issuers; DTCC will use Chainlink to build an all-weather collateral management network; Hana Bank has acquired a stake in Upbit operator Dunamu for $670 million, further reflecting that traditional financial institutions are accelerating their entry into the cryptocurrency infrastructure sector.In terms of investment and financing, a total of 14 financing deals were completed last week, with a total scale of $1.113 billion, of which financing in the infrastructure sector exceeded $1 billion, dominating the market. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic completed a $120 million financing round, with Deutsche Bank and Nasdaq participating; Bitcoin custody platform Onramp also completed a $12.5 million Series A financing, continuing to expand its institutional-grade custody infrastructure. Overall, in the context of rising macro uncertainty, market funds continue to concentrate on compliance, custody, and institutional-grade services.

According to Techfundingnews, London-based AI audit automation startup Calibre has announced the completion of a $3.3 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by Vicus Ventures and CIV.Calibre was founded by former Palantir executives with the goal of using AI Agents to enhance efficiency in the certification and auditing industry. The company believes that current auditors spend a significant amount of time on document review and process organization rather than applying professional judgment. Calibre plans to deploy AI Agents to automatically handle repetitive tasks such as document review, information extraction, and compliance verification, aiming to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency in the certification industry.Investors believe that the certification and auditing industry has long faced issues of cumbersome processes and high reliance on manual labor, and that AI Agents are expected to become an important infrastructure in this field.

According to CoinDesk, crypto wallet infrastructure Turnkey has completed a $12.5 million strategic financing, bringing the total funding to over $65 million. Major investors include Archetype, Circle Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.The new funds will primarily be used for the development and release of the digital asset security computing product Turnkey Verifiable Cloud.

AI character economy platform Charms Interactive announced the completion of a $1.5 million seed pre-financing, with participation from Lattice, JME, Coinbase Ventures (Base Ecosystem Fund), Gidorah (Echo), among others. Charms also launched the product Charms.ai, attempting to upgrade "AI characters" from application functions to tradable, ownable, and sustainably operating on-chain economic assets.

Former Goliath Ventures CEO Christopher Delgado recently publicly apologized to investors after being charged by U.S. prosecutors for operating a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme involving approximately $328 million. Delgado stated that he had betrayed the trust of investors and claimed he had voluntarily returned to the U.S. to face charges of fraud and money laundering.Prosecutors allege that between January 2023 and January 2026, he promised investors fixed monthly returns under the guise of "cryptocurrency liquidity pool investments," while actually using subsequent funds to pay returns to earlier investors. U.S. prosecutors also accused him of using some of the funds to purchase Florida properties worth a total of $14.5 million, as well as for hosting lavish events and trips. Delgado is currently out on bail, and if convicted on all charges, he could face up to 30 years in federal prison.

The BSC ecosystem's Fortune Protocol has announced the completion of its Seed round financing. This round of financing was participated in by TBV, Cogitent Ventures, X21 Digital, CGV FoF, K24 Ventures, LandScape Capital, and others.Fortune is a new generation Web3 financial protocol focused on building and innovating liquidity infrastructure for prediction markets. The funds raised in this round will be used to accelerate the development of Fortune's AI prediction tools and large-scale prediction models, promoting further development of the protocol in terms of technology, products, and ecosystem.

According to Fortune, the crypto venture capital firm Ethereal Ventures has spoken out for the first time after nearly five years since its establishment. The venture capital firm was co-founded by Min Teo and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin in 2021, and its two funds have a total size of approximately $150 million, having invested in over 80 early-stage projects, including EigenLayer.It is reported that Ethereal Ventures' first fund has performed well in terms of distributed capital return rate (DPI), while the second fund has currently deployed less than a quarter of its capital and still retains ample "dry powder."

According to The Block, SC Ventures, the fintech and investment division of Standard Chartered Bank, has made a strategic investment in the crypto market maker GSR.The company has also been expanding into other tokenized financial services recently. This investment makes SC Ventures the first external strategic shareholder of GSR since its establishment in 2013.