Highlights of This Issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 24 financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (3.17-3.23), with a total funding scale exceeding $336 million, a significant increase compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 8 financing events, among which Slingshot DAO successfully completed a $16 million financing round, with investors including Dragonfly Capital and others;
- The Web3 gaming sector announced 3 financing events, including the Web3 gaming platform Game Beast, which has been renamed Ephyra and completed a $10.5 million Series A financing round led by BECKER Ventures;
- The Web3+AI field announced 2 financing events, including Pluralis Research, which raised $7.6 million in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 8 financing events, including the decentralized data and identity protection platform Via Science, which completed a $28 million Series B financing round;
- The Other category announced 3 financing events, including the decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs, which announced the completion of a $5 million seed round, led by Yzi Labs.
DeFi
Slingshot DAO completes $16 million financing, SLING token to launch soon
Slingshot DAO officially announced that the project has successfully completed a $16 million financing round, with investors including Dragonfly Capital, Animoca Brands, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Sfermion, Standard Crypto, Sanctor Capital, Collab+Currency, Alphabit, and other well-known Web3 institutions. Additionally, Slingshot DAO revealed that the SLING token will be launched soon and hinted that trading will commence shortly.
Crypto-backed uranium spot market Uranium Digital raises $6.1 million, led by Framework Ventures
Uranium Digital founder Alex Dolesky announced that the company has raised $6.1 million in seed funding, aimed at accelerating the creation of a uranium spot trading platform using crypto infrastructure. This financing was led by Framework Ventures. Uranium Digital plans to become the world's first institutional market for uranium, an important clean energy commodity, despite the uranium market previously failing to mature due to strict regulations and low demand. With the resurgence of nuclear energy demand, Dolesky believes that creating an efficient and fast uranium spot market will attract more institutional investors.
Decentralized trading protocol Hibachi completes $5 million seed round financing
The decentralized trading protocol Hibachi announced the completion of a $5 million seed round financing, with participation from Dragonfly, Electric Capital, and echo. Hibachi is described as a decentralized trading protocol designed for professional traders, emphasizing provable security through zero-knowledge (zk) mathematics.
Stablecoin company Stable Sea completes $3.5 million financing, led by Kindred Ventures
Stablecoin-fiat solution provider Stable Sea announced the completion of $3.5 million in financing, led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Ludlow Ventures, DFS Lab, The Venture Dept., and The Fintech Fund. The funds will be used to further advance Stable Sea's mission to provide efficient, cost-effective, and compliant stablecoin withdrawal solutions.
The development company behind the stablecoin protocol Level, Peregrine Exploration, recently completed a new round of financing of $2.6 million, led by Dragonfly Capital, with Polychain participating, bringing the total financing amount to $6 million. New investors include Flowdesk, Echo Syndicates, Native Crypto, Feisty Collective, as well as Frax founder Sam Kazemian and Injective co-founder Albert Chon. Level's yield-bearing stablecoin, lvlUSD, has surpassed $80 million in supply since its beta launch 5 months ago and plans to incorporate Morpho into its yield sources while expanding the utility of lvlUSD. Currently, users can mint lvlUSD by depositing USDC or USDT and stake it to earn yields in DeFi protocols like Aave, with an annual yield rate of 8.3%, higher than some money market funds.
Tokenized real estate investment platform Manifest Finance has completed $2.5 million in financing, led by VanEck, with participation from Lattice Fund, Compound, and SALT fund. Manifest is described as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to invest in tokenized U.S. real estate assets. By leveraging blockchain technology, Manifest provides fractional ownership opportunities, enabling investors to access real-world assets (RWA) with lower capital requirements and higher liquidity.
Lending protocol Exactly Protocol completes $2 million new round of financing
The decentralized lending protocol Exactly Protocol, based on the Ethereum mainnet, announced the completion of a new round of financing of $2 million, bringing its total financing amount to $5 million. The latest round of financing was participated in by Bodhi Ventures, Newtopia, NXTP Ventures, and Kaszek Ventures, as well as Synthetix founder Kain Warwick and Decentraland co-founder Esteban Ordano. Exactly Protocol's team has developed an open-source, non-custodial DeFi protocol that offers borrowers floating and fixed interest rates, with plans to launch on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Optimism in the coming months.
Solana ecosystem gold tokenization project ORO completes $1.5 million Pre-Seed round financing
Solana ecosystem gold tokenization project ORO announced the completion of $1.5 million in Pre-Seed round financing, led by 468 Capital, with participation from Fasset, Dead King Ventures, and several angel investors. ORO aims to expand income-generating real-world assets through gold tokenization on Solana.
Web3 Games
Gamebeast rebrands to Ephyra and completes $10.5 million Series A financing
The Web3 gaming platform Game Beast announced a brand upgrade, officially rebranding to Ephyra, and will focus on building an AI Agent-enabled gaming ecosystem. At the same time, Ephyra completed a $10.5 million Series A financing round, led by BECKER Ventures, with participation from several family offices in the UAE and Hong Kong. The Ephyra ecosystem will launch multiple AI-driven gaming products and plans to initiate a token TGE, with more details to be announced gradually.
The mini gaming platform PlaysOut completed a $7 million seed round financing at a valuation of $70 million. OKX Ventures, KBW Ventures, and Pacific Century Group participated in this round. This financing enables the company to focus on three key tasks: expanding its mini-game ecosystem, securing strategic partnerships, and penetrating high-growth markets in the U.S., Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. PlaysOut is described as a mini gaming platform that helps developers publish mini-games on super APP platforms like Telegram, Discord, and YouTube by embedding blockchain functionalities and other infrastructures.
Blockchain Game Kamigotchi Completes $1.3 Million Seed Round Financing
The on-chain game Kamigotchi, built on the Initia Interwoven Stack, announced the completion of a $1.3 million seed round financing, with investors including Seed Club VC, TempleDAO, and angel investors such as DCF God.
AI
AI-Driven Metaverse Technology Platform Peer Completes $10.5 Million New Round of Financing
Peer Global Inc. has completed a new round of financing totaling $10.5 million, bringing its total investment to $65.5 million. This financing was led by the Tommy Mai family office and will be used to expand Peer’s development team, enhance its AI capabilities, and improve its metaverse platform. Peer is described as a technology platform that integrates AI to create interactive digital environments. The company has launched 3D personal planets, allowing users to create and customize digital spaces for social interaction. Peer’s metaverse engine provides developers with tools to build AI-generated digital environments. Peer’s monetization strategy includes the sale of virtual properties, allowing users to purchase and personalize digital spaces.
Pluralis Research has raised $7.6 million in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures, with other investors including Topology, Variant, Eden Block, Bodhi Ventures, and notable crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan. Pluralis aims to challenge the dominance of large enterprises in the AI field by providing computing power through a decentralized blockchain network. The company plans to use this funding to conduct research to see if AI models can be trained through a distributed network, avoiding centralized computing resources. Founder Alexander Long, a former AI engineer at Amazon, and his team are working to enable small companies to participate in the AI race.
Infrastructure & Tools
The Walrus Foundation announced the successful raising of $140 million, with major investors including Standard Crypto, and other investors such as a16z crypto, Electric Capital, Creditcoin, Lvna Capital, Protagonist, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Karatage, RW3 Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, and The Raptor Group. This fundraising was completed through the sale of the Walrus protocol's cryptocurrency $WAL, which is expected to have a total supply valued at $2 billion.
The Walrus protocol was developed by Mysten Labs, a company founded by former Meta employees, known for its high-speed blockchain Sui. Walrus aims to address the shortcomings of existing storage protocols in scalability, security, and flexibility by providing faster and cheaper decentralized storage. Although Walrus is still in the testing phase, Mysten Labs has already built a website hosting service on the protocol and plans to launch it on March 27.
Via Science, Inc. (VIA) has completed $28 million in Series B financing to accelerate the development of its data and identity protection platform for governments and enterprises. Investors in this round include Bosch Ventures (leading), BMW i Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, and Sentinel Global. New investors joined existing investors, including Westly Group, to complete this minority equity investment. VIA’s decentralized identity management combines end-to-end quantum-resistant encryption technology to ensure authorized access and privacy while achieving enterprise-level auditability and control. VIA claims its decentralized, zero-trust architecture has been rigorously tested by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Crypto Development Platform Crossmint Completes $23.6 Million Financing, Led by Ribbit Capital
Crypto development platform Crossmint announced the completion of $23.6 million in financing, covering seed, Series A, and strategic financing, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, Lightspeed Faction, and others. Crossmint provides API tools to help developers easily integrate crypto functionalities without needing a deep understanding of blockchain technology. Its clients include Adidas, Red Bull, Coinbase, and 40,000 other businesses and developers. Its stablecoin API and AI bot payment features have been well-received, with subscription growth of 1,100% expected in 2024. Crossmint plans to further expand into traditional finance and tech markets, differentiating itself from competitors like Alchemy.
Web3 Workflow Protocol Halliday Completes $20 Million Series A Financing, Led by a16z Crypto
Web3 workflow protocol developer Halliday announced the completion of $20 million in Series A financing, led by a16z crypto, with other participants including Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Credibly Neutral, Alt Layer, and several angel investors, bringing its total financing to $26 million. Halliday aims to simplify the smart contract creation process, allowing developers to delegate workflows to automated systems to shorten development time. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its engineering team (currently 17 people) and further develop its workflow protocol and payment application Halliday Payments. Halliday CEO Griffin Dunaif stated that the company’s goal is to bring blockchain into the software age, enabling developers to build applications in hours rather than years, and to promote the application of secure AI systems in decentralized networks. Halliday was founded in April 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Digital Asset Wallet Provider Utila Completes $18 Million Series A Financing, Led by Nyca Partners
Digital asset platform Utila raised $18 million in Series A financing, which will be used to expand its multi-party computation (MPC) wallet services to meet the growing demand for institutional digital asset management. Nyca Partners led this round of financing, with other participants including Wing VC, NFX, Haymaker Ventures, Gaingels, and Cerca Partners. Since emerging last year, this latest round of financing has brought the startup's total venture capital to approximately $30 million.
Crypto Wallet Infrastructure Company Privy Raises $15 Million, Led by Ribbit Capital
Blockchain infrastructure company Privy has raised $15 million in a new round of financing, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Coinbase. This financing brings Privy’s total funding amount to over $40 million. Privy provides enterprises with tools to connect crypto wallets with applications or websites, aiming to simplify the use of crypto wallets for mainstream users to more easily enter the blockchain world. Privy plans to use this funding to double its team size within the next 18 months, currently serving about 50 million accounts and collaborating with over 1,000 companies.
Multi-Party Computation Platform Stoffel MPC Completes $1.6 Million Pre-Seed Round Financing
The privacy-focused multi-party computation platform Stoffel MPC has completed $1.6 million in Pre-Seed round financing, led by Eterna Capital and Robot Ventures, with participation from several angel investors. Stoffel is designed to help developers build privacy-centric applications using multi-party computation (MPC) technology.
Austrian Bank Raiffeisen Bank Invests Millions of Euros in Crypto Tax Company Blockpit
Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has invested millions of euros in the Austrian startup Blockpit, which focuses on crypto asset taxation, through its venture capital arm Elevator Ventures. Blockpit, headquartered in Linz and led by CEO Florian Wimmer, recently announced that it achieved profitability in 2024, making it an attractive target for investors looking to profit from the growing demand for compliant crypto services. The amount of RBI's investment and Blockpit's valuation have not been disclosed. Founded in 2017, Blockpit currently has 30 employees. In 2021, the company raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by MiddleGame Ventures. In November 2023, following its merger with German competitor CryptoTax in 2020, Blockpit also acquired Swiss competitor Accointing in a multi-million euro deal.
Others
Prediction Platforms:
Crypto Prediction Platform Yeet Completes $7.75 Million Financing, Led by Dragonfly
Crypto prediction platform Yeet has completed $7.75 million in financing, led by Dragonfly, with participation from angel investors including Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz and LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino. Yeet was co-founded by well-known figures in the crypto space, Michael Anderson (alias Mando), anonymous trader Keyboard Monkey, and professional poker player Ben Lamb, focusing on "prediction markets for crypto users," targeting a high-risk tolerant crypto-native audience.
Decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs announced that it has completed a $5 million seed round financing earlier, led by Yzi Labs, with other investors including angel investment community Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, and others.
E-commerce:
Decentralized business network Domin Network has announced that it has received strategic investments from Animoca Brands, KuCoin Labs, Web3Labs.club, IBC Group Official, DWF Ventures, Presto, Outlier Ventures, KnightFury, ThreeDAO, Awakening Ventures, and AB DAO. Domin Network is described as a decentralized business network that connects software, hardware, and consumer behavior data on-chain using NFT and DePIN Rollup technology, enabling users to earn crypto rewards by sharing their consumption data.
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