Organized by: Lawrence, Mars Finance

Summary

Last week, 29 blockchain startups collectively raised $752.2 million in funding.

Last week's largest funding rounds

Riot raised $594.4 million in funding.

Riot is a Texas-based Bitcoin mining and hosting company that operates the largest Bitcoin mining facility in North America, leading the industry. By emphasizing the integration of currency and energy, Riot Blockchain fosters the growth of Bitcoin value while advancing energy networks and generation capabilities.

Pre-seed and Seed funding rounds

BitDCA (Littlebit) raised $2 million in Pre-seed funding.

BitDCA is a platform based in Prague that simplifies Bitcoin savings through its app Littlebit. The app automates Bitcoin purchases through dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategies, allowing users to accumulate Bitcoin easily through daily card transactions.

Silencio raised $2.5 million in Seed funding, led by Blockchange Ventures*, Borderless Capital, Master Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF), Prosper GmbH & Co. KG, and Advanced Blockchain AG.

Silencio is a community-driven network dedicated to addressing noise pollution issues, incentivizing users to provide hyper-local noise data through a free app. As one of the largest citizen science projects globally, Silencio allows users to share their surrounding sound levels, earn rewards, and monetize the data, providing more accurate noise maps for industries such as real estate, hospitality, health, insurance, government, and academia, with the ultimate goal of reducing noise pollution and improving global quality of life.

Fraction AI raised $6 million in Pre-seed funding, led by The Spartan Group*, Symbolic Capital (formerly Hyperedge Capital)*, Borderless Capital, Anagram, Foresight Ventures, PAKA, MH Ventures, Karatage, Cogitent Ventures, Generative Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures, Mask Network, Next Web Capital, Kosmos Ventures, Builder Capital, Sandeep Nailwal, and Illia Polosukhin.

Fraction AI is a decentralized platform that utilizes blockchain technology to create high-quality labeled datasets for training AI models. By combining human intelligence and autonomous agents, the platform supports submission, labeling, and validation of various types of data (including text, images, audio, and video) while ensuring data quality through a reputation-based consensus mechanism. Contributors and validators are incentivized through FRAC tokens, promoting community ownership and universal accessibility of datasets.

Promeet raised $3.1 million in Pre-seed funding.

Promeet is a platform that supports content creators to host and monetize live events, performances, and conferences. Through secure blockchain payments, creators can charge per event or hourly and profit instantly. Promeet supports real-time audience interaction and personalized content promotion, helping creators convert content into revenue.

Juicyway raised $3 million in Pre-seed funding, led by P1 Ventures*, Ventures Platform Fund, Future Africa, Magic Fund, and Microtraction.

Juicyway is a financial platform that offers multi-currency accounts, seamless currency exchange, and local or international transfer services. The platform supports digital assets such as BTC, ETH, and stablecoins, enabling secure transactions, earnings, and withdrawals. Juicyway ensures compliance, transparent fees, and provides API integration for global payment capabilities.

Other funding rounds

DuckChain raised $5 million in funding, with investors including dao5 (daofive), Offchain Labs, Kenetic, DWF Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures, Skyland Ventures, GeekCartel, Gate Labs, Presto Labs, Camelot, and Quantstamp.

DuckChain is the consumer layer of The Open Network (TON), designed to seamlessly connect TON with the global crypto ecosystem and facilitate the transition experience from Web2 to Web3. Leveraging the infrastructure of Arbitrum Orbit, it enhances scalability and interoperability, enabling developers to deploy Ethereum-compatible smart contracts within the TON environment. Additionally, DuckChain launched an Initial Star Offering (ISO) to expand its Web3 capabilities through the tokenization of Telegram star users.

Beam raised $250,000 in funding, with DWF Labs as the investor.

Beam is a blockchain-based gaming ecosystem running on the Avalanche network, providing tools for game developers to support seamless Web3 integration and offering a community-centric platform for players.

CELL Studio (UTXO Stack) raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding, with investments from UTXO Management, CMS Holdings, and PAKA.

UTXO Stack is a modular Bitcoin Layer 2 blockchain launch platform developed by CELL Studio, supporting developers in creating high-performance, scalable parallel chains and utilizing Turing-complete smart contracts. By staking Bitcoin Layer 1 assets like BTC and CKB, it ensures network security while supporting the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem and Layer 2 solutions.

Kettle raised $4 million in funding, with investors including ParaFi Capital*, Zee Prime Capital, Kronos Research, Signum Capital, IOSG Ventures, Puzzle Ventures, OSF, and Gmoney.

Kettle is a peer-to-peer luxury watch trading marketplace that trades based on the total financial value of watches. The platform offers 24/7 global trading access, ensuring all watches are certified, insured, and securely stored in Kettle Vault in New York, providing collectors with a seamless and trustworthy trading experience.

Flock raised $3 million in strategic funding, with investors including Digital Currency Group (DCG)*, Lightspeed Faction, Animoca Brands, Fenbushi Capital, Gnosis DAO, Bas1s Ventures, A41, and GSR Markets LTD.

Flock is developing a privacy-preserving decentralized machine learning platform utilizing federated learning. Its goal is to introduce competitiveness in the machine learning field through open leaderboards and sponsored training tasks, and to drive the development of decentralized AI in a community-driven manner.

Derive (ex Lyra) raised $500,000 in public sale funding.

Derive is a decentralized protocol for creating programmable on-chain options, perpetual contracts, and structured financial products. It is built on Derive L2, an Ethereum rollup based on OP Stack, and managed by a DAO. The protocol employs a modular architecture to support flexible upgrades, while using sub-accounts, assets, and managers to optimize trade execution, risk management, and liquidity.

Plume Network raised $20 million in funding, with investors including Brevan Howard Digital*, HAUN Ventures*, Lightspeed Faction*, and Galaxy Digital*.

Plume Network is a public blockchain designed specifically for scaling real-world assets (RWAs), providing full-stack infrastructure for compliant deployment of any asset class. It supports activities such as yield earning, lending transactions, and leveraged speculation while integrating compliance measures like KYC and AML.

Lens Protocol raised $31 million in strategic funding, with investors including Lightspeed Faction*, Avail, Alchemy Ventures, and Circle Ventures.

Lens Protocol is a user-owned Web3 social graph based on the Polygon blockchain, designed to empower creators and achieve portability of content and connections.

Masa raised an undisclosed amount in strategic funding, with investors including Digital Currency Group (DCG)* and FBG Capital.

Masa is building a decentralized Zk data marketplace and network, providing a privacy-first decentralized Google for the AI era.

Other startups (such as Hexagate, StablR, BVNK, etc.) have also received significant investments in their fields, contributing to the diverse development of blockchain technology.

Hexagate raised an undisclosed amount in M&A funding, invested by Chainalysis.

Hexagate is a Web3 security platform that provides real-time threat prevention and risk analysis to protect digital assets and smart contracts from cyber attacks, hacking, and financial risks. Its services are applicable to protocols, blockchains, asset managers, exchanges, Web3 applications, and wallet providers, preventing financial losses through proactive measures.

StablR raised an undisclosed amount in funding, with investment from Tether.

StablR is a fintech company that offers an institutional-grade stablecoin platform, allowing enterprises to create, manage, and redeem euro-denominated stablecoins (EURR). These stablecoins are fully backed by fiat assets, providing a secure and stable alternative to traditional currencies.

BVNK raised $50 million in Series B funding, with investors including HAUN Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Tiger Global.

BVNK is a fintech company that provides stablecoin payment infrastructure, connecting traditional banking systems with blockchain technology to facilitate faster and more efficient global capital flows.

Prometheum raised $20 million in funding.

Prometheum is a blockchain platform aimed at providing issuance, trading, settlement, and custody services for digital asset securities within a regulatory framework. Founded by a group of Wall Street lawyers, the platform seeks to connect traditional financial systems with the emerging digital asset market.

Fuel Network raised $4.5 million in public sale funding.

Fuel is a Layer 2 scalable technology aimed at providing the world's fastest modular execution layer. As the first optimistic rollup on the Ethereum mainnet, it offers powerful capabilities for blockchain developers through parallel transaction execution and the Fuel virtual machine.

Oasys received investment from Animoca Brands Japan in an undisclosed amount of funding.

Oasys is a public blockchain designed specifically for gaming, featuring fast transactions, zero fees, and eco-friendly characteristics. Its unique multi-layer architecture includes a highly scalable Layer 1 and a Layer 2 dedicated to scaling solutions.

Keypom raised an undisclosed amount in M&A funding, invested by Infinex.

Keypom is a platform that simplifies user onboarding and transactions on the NEAR blockchain. It allows users to experience decentralized applications without needing a pre-owned wallet by distributing assets like NEAR tokens, FT, and NFTs through customizable links.

Gasp (ex Mangata Finance) raised $450,000 in public sale funding.

Gasp is a cross-chain trading protocol designed to enable seamless transfers between Ethereum scaling networks (such as Arbitrum and Optimism) and plans to expand to other blockchains. As a Layer 2 cross-aggregation solution, Gasp leverages escape hatches, zero-knowledge proofs, and decentralized orderers to ensure the security and integrity of user funds.

Omnia Protocol raised an undisclosed amount in funding, supported by ChainGPT Labs, Castrum Capital, and other investors.

OMNIA provides secure, private RPC infrastructure for DeFi traders, supporting over 70 blockchain networks, including Ethereum, BSC, and Solana. It addresses challenges such as front-running and MEV extraction through cutting-edge protection and real-time transaction flow, while allowing node operators to earn rewards through performance-based incentives.

Andrena (DAWN) raised $2.5 million in funding, with VanEck as the investor.

Andrena is a decentralized wireless internet service provider that aims to revolutionize broadband access through blockchain technology. It utilizes the Solana blockchain to provide efficient, low-cost high-speed internet services, especially connecting underserved and remote areas.

Bitdrome raised an undisclosed amount in funding, with investors including BEVM and Michael Egorov.

Bitdrome Finance is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that utilizes Curve's next-generation automated market maker (AMM) technology, serving as a liquidity hub for the Bitcoin ecosystem where users can trade tokens and provide liquidity through Bitdrome's smart contracts.

Mest raised an undisclosed amount in M&A funding, invested by NFTGo.

Mest is a crypto portfolio management platform that provides accounting, analytics, and personalized insights to help users track holdings, costs, gains, and losses across multiple wallets and exchange accounts. It also supports cross-chain news updates and cross-chain swap functionality to enhance user experience.

DexCheck AI raised an undisclosed amount in funding, supported by ChainGPT Labs.

DexCheck is an AI-based analytics platform aimed at enhancing the cryptocurrency and NFT trading experience. It provides real-time data, smart dashboards, and AI-driven insights to help traders make informed decisions. Its core features include token analysis, wallet analysis, and crypto whale tracking, while supporting multiple blockchain networks such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana.

The funding activities of these startups reflect the ongoing growth and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem across multiple sectors, from decentralized finance (DeFi) to gaming, social media, and data privacy technologies.