According to incomplete statistics from CoinVoice, more than 15 blockchain project financing cases were announced this week (9.23-9.27). There were 3 financings of tens of millions of dollars this week, including the modular blockchain network Celestia, which completed a financing of 100 million US dollars, which was the largest financing event this week. Other popular projects include the liquidity pledge agreement Meridian, the life simulation game Smolbound, and the gamified full-chain liquidity aggregation agreement 0xAstra. Among the investment and financing segments, the infrastructure field was relatively hot this week. The following is a list of financing events this week.
Crypto front-end hosting solution EarthFast completes $1.4 million Pre-Seed round of financing
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.
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 ââKabessa.
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.
Movement Ecosystem DeFi Project Meridian Completes $4 Million Seed Round Financing
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.
Web3 game developer Darkbright Studios completes $6 million seed round
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.
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.
Blockchain and AI climate technology company Coral completes $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing
Blockchain and AI climate technology company Coral has completed a $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing. According to a statement disclosed by the company, the investors and valuation information will not be announced for the time being. It is reported that the new funds will help Coral open a new office in Abu Dhabi, hire more experts and improve its artificial intelligence platform, while expanding its business and enhancing its blockchain-based carbon emissions management platform, which can use the blockchain backend to achieve "full life cycle traceability" of carbon credits.
Universal FHE protocol octra completes $4 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Finality Capital
According to official news, the general FHE protocol octra announced the completion of a $4 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Finality Capital, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Karatage, Presto, Builder Capital, etc. In addition, octra announced that it has released a public WASM sandbox to demonstrate the efficiency of hypergraph in FHE. The architecture of octra is based on "circles", an independent execution environment. Within circles, developers can build backend logic of any complexity for web2 and web3 applications. Coupled with a custom consensus that uses ML for node selection and a combination of PoW and PoS, the network provides security for personal data. Currently, octra is in the final stages of development, and the mainnet is expected to be launched next year.
DeSci 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 reported that this investment in AminoChain is also the first "DeSci" (i.e. "decentralized science") 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. AminoChain previously raised $2 million in the Pre-Seed round of financing, bringing its total financing to date to $7 million. (TheBlock)
Solana DePIN project Mawari Network completes $10.8 million strategic financing Mawari Network, a Solana decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) project focusing on spatial computing, has completed $10.8 million in strategic financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Anfield Ltd, Borderless Capital and 1kx, with participation from Accord Ventures, Animoca Brands Japan, Blockchange Ventures, Draper Dragon, Samsung Next and others. Following the $6.5 million financing in February 2023, this round of strategic financing brings Mawari's total financing to $17.3 million. Mawari plans to go live on the Solana mainnet in the first quarter of 2025, and will sell node licenses in the fourth quarter of this year to expand infrastructure.
Initia Completes $14 Million Series A Funding, Led by Theory Ventures
According to official news, the Rollup interoperability protocol Initia announced the completion of a $14 million Series A financing round, led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, and angel investors such as Bryan Pellegrino, NoSleepJon, Jordi Alexander, Zaki Manion, Keone Hon, 0x Cygaar, Guy Young, Icebergy, Chainyoda, and Michael Egorov. After completing this round of financing, Initia's total financing amount reached $22.5 million, including seed round investments from Delphi Ventures and HackVC and pre-seed round investments from Binance Labs. It is reported that Initia is an Interwoven Rollup network that plans to build a multi-chain system based on Initia L1 and various Interwoven L2s, covering multiple aspects such as architecture, products, and economy. Recently, Initia acquired Celatone and the team behind it, Alles Labs. Celatone is a blockchain browser company that provides browser services for Sei, Osmosis, Neutron, Initia and all Interwoven Rollup L2. Initia's public testnet ended last month and lasted for 12 weeks. Initia plans to launch the mainnet and conduct TGE in the next two months. On the first day, more than 6 Layer 2s will be launched, and more L2s will be launched in the future.
Movement Ecosystem DeFi Project Meridian Completes $4 Million Seed Round Financing
According to official news, Meridian, a DeFi project in the Movement ecosystem, announced that it has completed a $4 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital, and Amber Group, Saison Capital, Interop Ventures and Oak Grove Ventures participated in the investment. It is reported that Meridian is a decentralized liquidity pledge protocol platform built on the Movement network. While the platform is committed to improving liquidity and income mechanisms for users, it can also demonstrate the advantages of smart contracts based on Move, aiming to create a seamless, efficient and secure DeFi experience to attract users and developers to join the Movement ecosystem. Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche said that Meridian's successful financing proves the growth potential of DeFi based on Move. As the ecosystem matures, Meridian will play a key role in aggregating liquidity and providing basic financial primitives. The funds will develop a strong, secure and highly composable DeFi landscape on Movement. "Meridian is currently running on the Movement testnet and plans to go online with its mainnet at the same time.
EarthFast, a front-end hosting solution, completes $1.4 million in Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Nascent and others
Front-end hosting solution EarthFast (formerly Armada Network) announced on X that it has completed 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. EarthFast was originally launched in 2022 as a community project called Armada Network. Its 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.
Helix Labs Completes $2 Million Pre-Seed Round of Financing, Led by Tribe Capital and Others
Helix Labs announced the successful completion of the Pre-Seed round of financing, raising $2 million at a valuation of $40 million, led by Tribe Capital, EMURGO Ventures, Taureon Capital, LD Capital, and Double Peak Group. The funds are intended to increase the use cases of standardized L1 assets, solve its "cold start" problem by providing liquidity and users for L3, unlock Cardano's liquidity, and bring it into the broader DeFi ecosystem. Helix Labs has joined the Movement Labs' Move Collective accelerator program, and the protocol technology 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 for Cardano. It is reported that Helix Labs aims to enhance the income opportunities of non-Ethereum L1 asset holders and support future MoveVM rollups through liquidity abstraction and the OmniVM technology stack.
Zero-knowledge proof generation layer Fermah completes $5.2 million seed round of financing
According to The Block, the zero-knowledge proof generation layer Fermah has completed a $5.2 million seed round of financing, led by a16z's CSX and Lemniscap, with participation from Bankless Ventures, Longhash Ventures, P-OPS team, Public Works, ZK Validator, Lambda Class, Daedalus, Zero DAO, Velocity Capital, Daemon Ventures, and angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan and Sandeep Nailwal.
According to RootData, a Web3 asset data platform, Fermah is a general-purpose zero-knowledge proof generation layer. It acts as a marketplace, with supply side including GPUs and FPGAs. On the demand side, Fermah can generate proofs for any instance that uses ZK.
0xAstra, the innovative gamified full-chain liquidity aggregation protocol, completes $3 million in seed round financing
0xAstra, an innovative protocol for gamified full-chain liquidity aggregation, announced the successful completion of a $3 million seed round of financing. This round of financing brought together many well-known investment institutions and leading projects including Ace Redpoint, Animoca Brands, Folius Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Orbiter and Ultiverse.
0xAstra uses a unique gamification strategy to energize full-chain liquidity and stimulate on-chain interaction. With deep cooperation with leading blockchain ecosystems, 0xAstra provides a richer and smoother cross-chain trading experience, pushing the potential of liquidity aggregation and re-staking to a new level. Since its launch, 0xAstra has connected to dozens of mainstream L1 and L2 networks. In just over two months, the platform's cumulative transaction volume has exceeded US$90 million, showing an amazing growth momentum.
The 0xAstra team is composed of senior experts in the fields of cryptocurrency, games, and the Internet. They have successfully launched a number of game products with over one million users and millions of dollars in revenue. Through this round of financing, 0xAstra hopes to lead a new round of innovation in the DeFi field and create a more dynamic and interactive decentralized financial ecosystem for global users.
Web3 video game platform Forge completes new round of financing, Sui Network and others participate
Web3 video game platform Forge announced on X Platform that it has completed a new round of financing. Sui Network, Ava Labs, Chris Wang, the founder of ThunderCore protocol, Dingaling, and consulting company AP Collective participated in the investment. The specific amount of financing and valuation information have not been disclosed yet.
It is reported that Forge plans to use the new funds to expand its blockchain-based Web3 video game platform, supporting players to integrate game achievements and activities into their personal profiles while providing social participation and game rewards.
Foresight Ventures announces multi-million dollar strategic investment in Layer1 blockchain Aptos
According to The Block, Foresight Ventures announced a multi-million dollar strategic investment in Layer1 blockchain Aptos.
The funds will be used to accelerate product development, enhance liquidity, and support the growth of Aptosâ scalable and upgradeable Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure.
