According to incomplete statistics from CryptoDAO, there were about 16 investment and financing events in the global crypto industry last week (October 9-15), with a total financing amount of about US$100 million. It is worth noting that the financing of the blockchain game track dropped sharply last week. Through sorting and screening, CryptoDAO selected 10 representative financing projects from the numerous financing information last week and compiled them into the following table:
In addition, Crypto DAO summarized the financing trends of last week, with the following specific analysis:
Institutions continue to lay out infrastructure & tools tracks, and the types of projects that disclosed financing information include the Bitcoin ecosystem, new Layer1 players, and smart contract wallets. Among them, OrdinalsBot, an infrastructure platform focusing on Bitcoin Ordinals, completed its seed round of financing.
DeFi has become less popular, and entrepreneurs in the entire segment are still exploring new narratives/paradigms. Among them, the tokenized RWA platform Untangled Finance and the crypto trading and lending platform Membrane Labs have both completed financing.
The amount of financing disclosed in the blockchain gaming sector has dropped sharply to zero.
There are not many NFT and Metaverse related financing projects, but there are high-valued projects. Among them, Web3 content platform RepubliK is valued at $75 million. The project aims to lower the barriers for online creators to start monetizing content and interactions.
How to leverage the advantages of blockchain technology in other application scenarios is still a direction for many entrepreneurs to explore. The projects that announced financing last week include fake user identification providers, Web3 and AI equity financing, crypto asset trading and crypto chain data analysis platforms. Among them, Galaxy Digital led a new round of financing for Parsec, a crypto chain data analysis platform.
For more investment and financing details, please see below:
1. Infrastructure & Tools
Project name: OrdinalsBot
Official website: https://ordinalsbot.com/
Attention: High
On October 9, OrdinalsBot, an infrastructure platform focusing on Bitcoin Ordinals, completed a $1 million seed round of financing. The investors in this round of financing include Kestrel 0X1, Lightning Ventures, Bitcoin Magazine Ecosystem Fund, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Angsana Investments, Deep Ventures, and individual investors include Sebastien Borget, Howard Morgan, Micah Spruill, Ivan Brightly and Dillon Healy. It is understood that OrdinalsBot has launched an SDK to help developers integrate Ordinals functions into their projects.
Project name: Initia
Official link: https://twitter.com/initiaFDN
Attention: High
On October 12, developers working on the Layer 1 network Initia announced that they had received a pre-seed round of investment from Binance Labs. The specific amount of financing and more details have not been disclosed. It is understood that Initia was developed using the Cosmos software development kit (SDK) and uses a computing framework called MoveVM based on the Move smart contract language.
Project name: Account Labs
Official website: https://www.accountlabs.com/
Attention: Medium
On October 12, Singapore-based crypto wallet service provider Account Labs completed a $7.7 million financing round led by Amber Group, MixMarvel DAO Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners. It is understood that the smart contract wallet UniPass and the hardware wallet Keystone announced their merger into Account Labs on May 20 this year. The team has now launched a wallet called UniPass Wallet that focuses on peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin transfers.
Project name: Beldex
Official website: https://www.beldex.io/
Attention: Medium
On October 11, privacy technology startup Beldex completed a $3 million financing, with Web3 market maker Enflux fully participating in the investment. It is understood that Beldex had completed a $25 million financing on February 23, with digital asset market maker and investment company DWF Labs investing and establishing a partnership with it.
Project Name: Neutral
Official website: https://www.neutralx.com/
Attention: Medium
On October 10, Neutral, a company dedicated to building market infrastructure for environmental assets such as carbon credits, renewable energy credits and other environmental commodities, announced the completion of a $3.2 million financing led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Redalpine, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Cerulean Ventures, Factor Capital, Very Early Ventures and Rarestone Capital. The company will use the funds to launch a regulated trading platform in Europe and plans to further expand to other regions in North America and Asia.
2. DeFi/Staking
Project Name: Untangled Finance
Official website: https://www.untangled.finance/
Attention: High
On October 11, the tokenized RWA platform Untangled Finance announced that it had received $13.5 million in venture capital and was launched on the Celo network. The main investor in this financing was asset management company Fasanara Capital. It is understood that Untangled announced plans to expand to Ethereum and Polygon networks through Chainlink, making the platform a multi-chain and interoperable RWA credit protocol.
Project Name: Membrane Labs
Official website: https://membranelabs.com/
Attention: Medium
On October 11, Membrane Labs, a crypto trading and lending platform, completed a $20 million Series A financing round, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, Point72 Ventures, Jane Street, Flow Traders, QCP Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Electric Capital, Jump Crypto, QCP Capital, GSR Markets, Belvedere Trading and Framework Ventures. The new funds in this round of financing will be used to help build a mature trading infrastructure required in the cryptocurrency field.
3. NFT & Web3 Creation & Metaverse
Project name: Game of Silks
Official website: https://silks.io/
Attention: Medium
On October 11, NFT horse racing company Game of Silks completed a $5 million financing, and the investors were not disclosed. It is understood that Game of Silks supports users to purchase NFTs corresponding to real participating horses, and NFT holders can receive rewards based on the performance of the horses corresponding to their tokens in the real world.
Project name: KINO Studios
Official website: https://www.kino.studio/
Attention: Medium
On October 11, entertainment technology company KINO Studios completed a Pre-Seed round of financing of over 2 million US dollars, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Slow Ventures, Metaweb Ventures, Genius Ventures, Near Protocol, Blockchain Founders Fund, etc. It is understood that KINO Studios will introduce a community-based economic model into the entertainment industry, and provide film and television creators with technical tools to attract fans and interact through community building, royalty processing and intellectual property discovery.
Project name: Republic
Official website: https://republik.gg/
Attention: Medium
On October 11, Web3 content platform RepubliK completed a $6 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $75 million. This round of financing was participated by OKX Ventures, HTX Ventures, 6MV, Arcane Group, Caroline Makes Statement, Comma3 Ventures, Enjin, FBG Capital, Mirana Ventures, OIG Capital, Signum Capital, and Sora Ventures. It is understood that RepubliK is a Web3 content platform that aims to lower the barriers for online creators to start monetizing content and interactions.
IV. Others
Project name: Verisoul
Official website: https://www.verisoul.ai/
Attention: Medium
On October 9, Verisoul, a provider of fake user identification, announced the completion of a $3.25 million financing round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with participation from King River Capital, Third Prime, HashKey Capital, and individual investors including AcuityMD CEO Mike Monovoukas. It is understood that Verisoul integrates data collection, machine learning models, and workflow creation into a single platform, allowing customers to prevent fake and duplicate registrations, stop automated activities, and detect account sharing, thereby screening out real users.
Project name: CrossFund
Official website: https://crossfund.com/
Attention: Medium
On October 9, Web3 and AI equity financing platform CrossFund announced that it had completed a new round of financing of $1.5 million at a valuation of $47 million. BlockBase Ventures, UI Investments, Australian Gulf Capital, BXB Capital, and some family offices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Asia participated in the investment. This is the fourth round of financing completed by the company in the past two years. It is understood that the CrossFund equity financing platform innovatively integrates AI and Web3 technologies in the review and fundraising process. So far, about 80 projects have successfully raised more than $40 million in funds on the platform, attracting 15,000 qualified investors to participate.
Project Name: VirgoCX
Official website: https://virgocx.ca/
Attention: Medium
On October 14, Virgo Global, the holding company of Canadian cryptocurrency trading platform VirgoCX, completed a 5 million Canadian dollar financing round, with Waterdrip Capital, Skylean Capital and Nextport Capital participating in the round. It is understood that the funds from this round of financing will be used to further develop the company's regulated entities and continue to expand into new regions. In addition, it will also be used to open a vertically integrated ecosystem from trading platforms to digital asset management to meet user needs.
Project name: Alpaca
Official website: https://alpaca.markets/
Attention: Medium
On October 13, Alpaca, a stock and cryptocurrency trading API service company, received $15 million in financing from SBI Group in the form of convertible notes. It is understood that Alpaca launched the crypto API in October 2021, which enables enterprises and developers to trade cryptocurrencies and stocks and build applications that provide cryptocurrency and stock investment services in one API. Although its crypto business has not yet generated significant revenue, the team remains optimistic about the future revenue expectations of the business.
Project name: Parsec
Official website: https://parsec.fi/
Attention: Medium
On October 12, Parsec, an encrypted chain data analysis platform, announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$4 million, led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from Uniswap Labs Ventures, BODL Ventures, Robot Ventures, CMT Digital, etc. It is understood that this round of financing is an extension of a seed round that the platform ended earlier this year, and the valuation of this round has not been disclosed.
Project name: Poko
Official website: http://www.poko.fund/
Attention: Medium
On October 12, Web3Auth announced the acquisition of payment solution Poko. It is understood that Poko allows Web3 games, creators, and merchants to deploy payments on any platform, enabling its users to pay with their preferred payment methods in more than 100 countries, and allowing merchants to receive stablecoins instantly from anywhere.
