According to Blockworks, venture fund a16z participated in two crypto funding rounds this week, focusing on blockchain infrastructure ventures. A16z led a $4.2 million seed round for Pimlico, an infrastructure product that aims to help wallet developers abstract away parts of the payment process. Sriram Krishnan, a16z general partner, praised Pimlico CEO Kristof Gazso's participation in the venture firm's crypto startup school in Los Angeles. Data from 1confirmation general partner Richard Chen shows that the use of Pimlico's form of account abstraction has increased for four consecutive months.

A16z also participated in a $5.5 million seed round for developer tool Stackr. Stackr has built a software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to build Web3 apps using general-programming languages, starting with JavaScript. The platform enables developers to create 'micro-rollups,' which separate execution and proving, prioritizing ease of development over decentralization. Stackr also participated in a16z's 2023 crypto startup school.

These investments mark a16z crypto's return to backing blockchain infrastructure startups, with their last similar move being in LayerZero's $120 million round in April, according to CryptoRank. In other news, Lightspeed Faction announced its $285 million crypto venture fund this week, with a primary interest in infrastructure and protocol level projects.

Additionally, the decentralized AI project Ritual secured $25 million in seed funding, led by Archetype and with participation from Accomplice and Robot Ventures. Ritual aims to launch its platform in early 2024, focusing on allowing AI to preserve transparency and privacy. The project is advised by the founders of NEAR Protocol and Eigenlayer.