According to Blockworks, ten crypto startups raised nearly $103 million this week, with the largest funding going to Blockaid. The company secured $33 million from a seed and Series A round, with investors including Ribbit Capital, Variant, Cyberstarts, Sequoia Capital, and Greylock Partners. Blockaid focuses on blockchain security by scanning transactions originating from wallets and those interacting with dapps and smart contracts. Its tools are compatible with most blockchains, and the company claims to have scanned 450 million user transactions in the last three months, thwarting 1.2 million deemed malicious.
Web3 gaming also saw significant funding this week, as Neon Machine, the studio behind the crypto-enabled first-person shooter game "Shrapnel", raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital. Other investors included Griffin Gaming Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Franklin Templeton, IOSG Ventures, and Tess Ventures. The free-to-play multiplayer title aims to mimic Call of Duty, with in-game apparel such as weapons offered as NFTs on Shrapnel's private Avalanche network. The funds will be used to further develop the game ahead of its planned 2024 launch, with an early version potentially available by December.
Emerging from stealth this week was smlXL, a crypto startup backed by a16z, which raised $13.4 million from Greylock and other angel investors. Founded by Dor Levi, formerly of Lyft, smlXL is behind evm.storage, a blockchain explorer that allows users to look up the storage of any individual contract on Ethereum or Avalanche. The company also created evm.codes, which catalogs EVM opcodes. Its products have 15,000 active monthly users, and one goal after the fundraise is to offer a paid version of evm.storage with more features for pro users.
