Compiled by: Luan Peng, RootData
According to incomplete statistics from RootData, from September 23 to September 29, 2024, there were 15 public investment and financing events in the blockchain and encryption industry, with a total financing of approximately US$229.2 million.
From the perspective of track distribution, the projects that received financing are mainly distributed in the infrastructure and Defi tracks. Popular projects include EarthFast, an encrypted front-end hosting solution, Mind Network, a fully homomorphic encryption network, MeshMap, a decentralized 3D map project, and Darkbright Studios, a game developer.
In addition, the Celestia Foundation announced that it has completed a $100 million financing, led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Syncracy Capital, 1kx, Robot Ventures, Placeholder, etc. This brings the total amount raised for the project to $155 million.
(List of projects that raised more than $5 million last week, data source: Rootdata)
1. Infrastructure
Blockchain project Initia completes $14 million Series A financing with a valuation of $350 million, led by Theory Ventures
According to The Block, the blockchain project Initia announced the completion of a US$14 million Series A financing round led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Hack VC and others. Angel investors include Keone Hon of Monad Labs, Bryan Pellegrino of LayerZero Labs, and Michael Egorov of Curve Finance.
Initia co-founder Ezaan Mangalji said the company started its Series A funding round earlier this year and closed in June. The round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants, which brings Initia’s FDV to $350 million.
DePIN Network Mawari Network Completes US$10.8 Million in Strategic Financing, Led by 1kx and Others
Mawari Network, a DePIN network under the decentralized content delivery platform Mawari, announced the completion of a US$10.8 million strategic financing, led by Anfield LTD, Borderless Capital and 1kx, with participation from Accord Ventures, Animoca Brands Japan, Blockchange Ventures, Draper Dragon, iAngels, Mulana Ventures, Parami Investors, Samsung Next and Waldo Holdings, as well as angel investors Ivan Brightly, Joshua Frank, Pete Townsend and Sean Carey.
This round of strategic financing brings Mawari’s total financing to $17.3 million. Mawari plans to launch on the Solana mainnet in the first quarter of 2025 and will conduct node license sales in the fourth quarter of this year to expand its infrastructure.
It is reported that the project currently serves 40 customers, including global brands such as T-Mobile, Netflix and BMW, with an average annual revenue of approximately US$1.5 million. Mawari focuses on real-time 3D content rendering and streaming, providing support for VR, AR and XR devices. It has currently obtained 3 patents and another 11 are pending.
Decentralized science project AminoChain completes $5 million seed round of financing, led by a16z
AminoChain announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by a16z. It is the first decentralized science (DeSci) project invested by a16z.
It is reported that AminoChain is building an L2 blockchain protocol that connects corporate medical institutions and building user-owned decentralized healthcare applications on the protocol. The first application built on AminoChain is a biospecimen market that allows researchers to query and license samples through a biospecimen bank network. Patients can track their sample usage, learn from new insights generated from the samples, and make money when selling these samples.
EarthFast, a crypto front-end hosting solution, completes $1.4 million in Pre-Seed funding led by TheGP and Nascent
EarthFast, a crypto front-end hosting solution, announced the completion of a $1.4 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by TheGP and Nascent, with participation from Bodhi Ventures, Infinex founder Kain Warwick and Audius co-founder Roneil Rumburg.
According to reports, EarthFast was originally launched in 2022 as a community project called Armada Network. EarthFast's first product is a front-end hosting solution that allows projects to transfer the responsibility of updating and deploying websites to DAOs, governance contracts, or any other on-chain entity.
Celestia Foundation Completes $100 Million Funding, Bain Capital Crypto Leads Investment
Celestia Foundation announced that it has completed $100 million in financing, led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Syncracy Capital, 1kx, Robot Ventures, Placeholder, etc. This brings the total amount raised for the project to $155 million.
Celestia Mainnet Beta went live in October 2023, providing a dedicated modular consensus and data network. Since launch, an early ecosystem has formed, with developers deploying the first 20 rollup chains, and the Celestia data blob recently reaching more than half of the total data released by rollups.
It is reported that Celestia's core developer community recently announced its technical roadmap, whose core goal is to expand to 1 GB blocks, bringing a significant increase in data throughput to Celestia's rollup ecosystem.
Bitcoin second-layer network open project Zulu Network completes seed round financing, Draper Dragon and others participate
Zulu Network, an open Bitcoin second-layer network project, announced the completion of a seed round of financing, with participation from Draper Dragon, CGV, Web3.com Ventures, PANONY, D11 Labs and Splinter Node Capital. It is reported that Zulu aims to unlock new infrastructure for the Bitcoin economy and change the Bitcoin second-layer paradigm. It received $3 million in pre-seed financing earlier this year.
2. Defi
Fully homomorphic encryption network Mind Network completes $10 million Pre-A round of financing, with Animoca Brands and others participating
According to official news, the fully homomorphic encryption network Mind Network announced the completion of a $10 million Pre-A round of financing. Major investors include Animoca Brands, Arkstream Capital, Cogitent Ventures, G Ventures, MH Ventures, Master Ventures, Moonhill Capital, SwissBorg Ventures, IBC Group, etc. This round of financing also attracted well-known angel investors, including Ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze, and well-known figures in the encryption field Mario Nawfal, Mr Block and Kyle Chassé. After this financing, Mind Network plans to expand its business by integrating more staking protocols and continue to release supporting infrastructure. Users holding staked assets from partner protocols can redeem vFHE on Mind Network and participate in FHE voting.
According to reports, Mind Network is a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) layer for AI and POS networks. This layer accepts re-staking tokens from ETH, BTC, and AI Blue Chip tokens, and operates as an FHE verification network, providing consensus, data, and crypto-economic security for POS networks such as decentralized AI, DePIN, EigenLayer, Symbiotic, and Babylon AVS. Mind Network has previously been supported by Binance Labs, Hashkey, Big Brain, Chainlink, and has received funding from the Ethereum Foundation for its FHE research on Ethereum.
Movement Ecosystem DeFi Project Meridian Completes $4 Million Seed Round of Financing, Led by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital
According to PR Newswire, Meridian, a decentralized liquidity market and liquidity staking protocol built on Movement, announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing, led by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital, with participation from Amber Group, Saison Capital, Interop Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures and other institutions.
With this funding, Meridian plans to expand its global team and actively recruit talents in engineering, product and marketing. The protocol is currently live on the testnet and is scheduled to be launched on the first day of the Movement mainnet.
It is worth noting that the Move ecosystem currently accounts for only a small fraction of on-chain liquidity and transaction volume compared to existing EVM and SVM solutions. Meridian plans to leverage the security and composability of the Move language to close this gap.
Helix Labs, a re-staking protocol, completes $2 million in Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Tribe Capital and others
Helix Labs, a re-staking protocol, has completed a $2 million Pre-Seed financing led by Tribe Capital, EMURGO Ventures, Taureon Capital, LD Capital, and Double Peak Group. This financing will accelerate the increase of L1 asset application scenarios, solve the cold start problem of L3, and promote Cardano liquidity into a wider DeFi ecosystem by providing liquidity and users.
Helix Labs aims to enhance the yield opportunities for non-Ethereum L1 asset holders and support future MoveVM Rollups through liquidity abstraction and the OmniVM technology stack. By enhancing token utility, expanding EigenFi capacity, and providing liquidity as a service, it provides users with greater returns and brings more liquidity to DeFi. Helix Labs has joined the Movement Labs' Move Collective accelerator program, and the protocol will allow Cardano's ADA token holders to stake while obtaining liquid staked ADA, which will then be bridged to Movement, thereby releasing approximately $12 billion in liquidity on Cardano.
3. DePIN
Decentralized 3D map project MeshMap completes $4 million in financing, with a16z CSX and GSR participating
Ryan Rzepecki, co-founder of the decentralized 3D map project MeshMap, posted on X that the project has completed $4 million in financing, with participation from a16z CSX, Colosseum, Lattice, Escape Velocity, GSR and other institutions. In addition, individual investors participating in this round of financing include Solana’s two co-founders Toly and Raj, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and others.
It is reported that a16z Crypto announced the launch of the Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) Fall 2024 project, and 21 projects including MeshMap were selected.
4. Games
Web3 game developer Darkbright Studios completes $6 million seed round led by Bitkraft Ventures
According to Venturebeat, game developer Darkbright Studios announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from Play Ventures, Anthos Capital, King River Capital, Rockaway X, Zentry, Caballeros Capital, Gam3Girl Ventures and Offchain Labs.
The company plans to use the funds to develop core games, starting with the life simulation game Smolbound. This RPG-sim hybrid is a player-driven world that seamlessly integrates Web3 technology.
Darkbright has begun closed testing of the game, with plans to launch it on the Treasure Layer-2 blockchain next year.
V. Others
Web3 reward information aggregation solution Daylight completes $6 million seed round of financing, led by USV
Daylight, a Web3 reward information aggregation solution, announced that it has completed a $6 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Union Square Ventures (USV), with participation from Framework Ventures, Chapter One, Zerion co-founders Evgeny Yurtaev and Vadim Koleoshkin, Blockaid co-founders Ido Ben-Natan and Raz Niv, and Yup co-founder Nir Kabessa.
According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Daylight raised US$3 million in November 2022, with investments from Framework Ventures, Chapter One and others.
It is reported that Daylight is an on-chain information aggregation platform that has been integrated into mainstream wallets such as MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Zerion and OKX Wallet. It provides personalized trading suggestions, including airdrop claims, NFT minting, game tasks, etc.
