According to Odaily’s incomplete statistics, a total of 27 domestic and overseas blockchain financing incidents were announced in the week of September 6-September 12, the same as a week ago; the total disclosed financing was about 200 million US dollars, showing a downward trend compared with last week .
Last week, the blockchain project with the largest single investment amount was Cere Network, Polkadot’s ecological decentralized data cloud platform, which received US$31 million in financing led by Republic and Polygon. Cere Network is optimized for service data integration and data collaboration. Previously, the project focused on targeting a CRM ecosystem platform with a solution that captures the entire customer journey on the blockchain and stores key user data such as purchases, achievements, and usage in user wallets.
The following are the specific financing events (sorted according to the announced amount, * is a "traditional" company whose business involves blockchain):
The following are the specific financing events (sorted according to the announced amount, * is a "traditional" company whose business involves blockchain):
Fintech startup Varo raises $510 million in Series E funding led by Lone Pine Capital*
Fintech start-up Varo announced on Thursday that it has raised $510 million in Series E funding, led by hedge fund Lone Pine Capital, with participation from dozens of new and existing investors. The company’s valuation rose to $2.5 billion from about $700 million previously, according to people familiar with the matter. Varo chief executive Colin Walsh said that within 13 months of acquiring the franchise, Varo had doubled its customer accounts to 4 million and tripled its revenue. (CNBC)
Cere Network Receives $31 Million in Funding Led by Republic and Polygon
Cere Network, a Polkadot ecological decentralized data cloud platform, received US$31 million in financing, led by Republic and Polygon. Cere Network will use the funding to expedite the integration of its decentralized data cloud into the Polygon protocol, which is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter, roughly the same time as the Polkadot integration.
It is reported that Cere Network has recently completed a $28 million CERE token sale on DAO Maker and Polkastarter, with Republic leading the investment. Additionally, Polygon is investing $3 million, which will be used for new hires, developer network growth, and app development. Cere Network is also backed by XRP Capital, AU21, Fenbushi Capital and Neo Global Capital. The Cere team has more than 60 employees around the world to meet the needs of its decentralized data cloud publishing. (CoinDesk)
Transaction Monitoring Software Company Eventus Closes $30M Series B Funding Led by Centana Growth Partners*
Eventus Systems, a transaction monitoring software company, completed a $30 million financing led by Centana Growth Partners, with participation from DRW VC, CMT Digital, existing investors Jump Capital and LiveOak Venture Partners, and several new strategic investors. Eventus will use the funding to further scale, including expanding its sales, product and engineering teams, further building out its flagship Validus platform, expanding its product suite across asset classes, and bringing new financial risk applications to the platform. Eventus Systems is a provider of multi-asset class trade monitoring and market risk solutions. Its Validus platform is deployed, customized and operated across equity, options, futures, foreign exchange, fixed income and digital asset markets. With the new funding round, Eventus has raised $48.5 million to date, including a $10.5 million Series A round led by Jump Capital and LiveOak Venture Partners in February 2020. (inforney)
Eden Network, the Ethereum-first trading network, completed a $17.4 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital
Eden Network, the Ethereum priority trading network, announced the completion of a $17.4 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital, and derived from Jump Capital, Alameda Research, Wintermute, GSR, DeFiance Capital, and angel investor Yearn.Finance founder Andre Cronje and Genesis Capital Product manager Joshua Lim participated in the vote. Caleb Sheridan, the core developer of Eden Network, said that this round of financing was completed through the sale of EDEN tokens. The new financing will help Eden Network strengthen its infrastructure through research and development and further expand its adoption. To achieve this goal, the project also intends to triple the size of the current team of 10, employing mostly engineers.
Note: Eden Network is a project initiated by the Archer DAO team. The team raised $1 million last year through the ARCH token sale. EDEN tokens now represent a technological upgrade to ARCH tokens, and ARCH holders can upgrade 1:1. In addition, Eden Network was officially launched in early August, aiming to resist malicious MEV attacks. (The Block)
In-game Bitcoin micropayment development company ZEBEDEE completes $11.5 million in Series A financing, led by Lakestar
ZEBEDEE, a platform aiming to help introduce Bitcoin and Lightning Network into the gaming field, announced the completion of the $11.5 million Series A financing led by Lakestar, with participation from Initial Capital, New Form Capital, TVP, and the founder of CCP, an angel investor in the gaming field Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, Alexis Bonte, Chris Lee, Timo Soininen and John Salter, among others, also participated in the round from existing investors Collab + Currency, Cadenza and Fulgur Ventures.
ZEBEDEE intends to use the funds to expand the platform and pursue compliance. ZEBEDEE brings Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to the digital realm by building software development kits for developers, as well as enhancing games to embed Bitcoin-powered micropayments.
Nano Labs completes tens of millions of dollars in equity financing, led by Yongwan Capital
Nano Labs Ltd, the parent company of chip design company Haowei Technology, recently completed tens of millions of dollars in equity financing, led by Bay Capital, followed by Hashkey and several other investors. Nano Labs is committed to providing infrastructure support for the Metaverse. The company develops high-throughput memory chips, high-performance computing chips, and distributed computing solutions. The products can be applied to data centers, supercomputing, artificial intelligence and other fields, serving the metaverse. Application empowerment in various scenarios.
Through this round of financing, Nano Labs hopes to continue to iterate the company's products and derive new product lines to further provide infrastructure for the metaverse ecology. Under the current trend that the traditional world is rapidly evolving towards intelligence and digitalization, Nano Labs will continue to help the Metaverse with its accumulated profound industry insights and professional technical capabilities. (Aijiwei)
Rocket Dollar Completes $8M Series A Funding Led by Park West Asset Management*
Rocket Dollar, an alternative investment platform for digital pensions in the United States, received US$8 million in Series A financing, led by Park West Asset Management, with participation from Hyphen Capital, Moneta Venture Capital, Kraken Ventures, and Primetime Partners co-founded by Alan Patricof. Existing investor Sure Ventures participated in the round. Additionally, Todd Ruppert, former CEO and President of T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services, will join Rocket Dollar's board of directors. Rocket Dollar will use the funding to accelerate product development, improve customer experience, double down on cybersecurity, and expand investments in education and content. (PR Newswire)
According to official news, SubQuery, a decentralized data indexing tool, announced that it has received US$9 million in financing, co-led by Arrington Capital, DCG and Stratos Technologies, and followed by Hypersphere Ventures, NGC VENTURES, Wintermute and Skynet Trading. This round of financing will be used to build the first decentralized data aggregation layer of the Polkadot ecosystem. This round of financing brings together ecological co-builders into the Web3 ecosystem, and builds towards the vision of SubQuery, as the infrastructure for indexing data, serving all Polkadot and Kusama parachains and applications.
MineHub completed $7.9 million in financing and has listed on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange
Canadian enterprise blockchain company MineHub has landed on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange after completing a C$10 million (US$7.9 million) financing, with a current market cap of C$51 million (US$40 million). MineHub focuses on solving inefficiencies through digital transformation. In 2020, BHP Billiton and China Baowu launched an iron ore transaction through MineHub's blockchain platform. Other partners include Wheaton Precious Metals, ING Bank, Vale, Kimura Capital and IBM, among others. MineHub already operates in China, Singapore and Japan, and recently entered into a partnership with Contour, a blockchain-based trade finance platform co-founded by ING. (Ledger Insights)
According to official news, cross-chain and liquidity transfer protocol deBridge announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed round of financing, led by ParaFi Capital, Animoca Brands, Axia8 Ventures, Huobi Ventures, AU21 Capital, DFG, Lemniscap, Crypto.com Capital, MGNR, Krypital Group, IOSG, Fundamental Labs, Bitscale Capital, etc. participated in the investment. The team stated that the financing will be used to build cross-chain infrastructure and decentralized services, enabling the project to expand to other blockchain networks for greater scalability and interconnect different protocol components.
Play-to-Earn Game Guild CGU Completes $5 Million Seed Round Financing
Crypto Gaming United, a Play-to-Earn (earn while playing) game association backed by Australian venture capitalist Mark Carnegie, completed a $5 million seed round of financing. The guild currently has 1,500 players and is expected to grow to 100,000 within a year and a half. Most players are in the Philippines (Axie Infinity's main market), and a few are from countries such as Indonesia, South Africa, and India. Working across multiple games, the guild provides financial literacy and digital economy education to current and aspiring players. The game guild provides "scholarships" for NFT gamers, as well as entry funds and ongoing training funds. In return, guilds share in-game revenue with players. Carnegie, along with Crypto Gaming United co-founder Sergei Sergienko, formed the guild last month and currently has nearly 40,000 gamers waiting to join. They will be based in Singapore because the country is forward-looking in terms of cryptocurrency adoption. (Bloomberg)
DeFi Land, a blockchain gamification platform, has raised $4.1 million to launch a new decentralized finance game on Solana. Investors in this round of financing include Animoca Brands, Alameda Research, Jump Capital, NGC Ventures, Solana Foundation, Gate.io, etc.
It is reported that DeFi Land is an agricultural simulation game that aims to gamify all aspects of DeFi. Its goal is to create educational solutions for users looking to explore DeFi or other alternative financial solutions. The platform introduces a Play to earn model that allows users to earn income by completing tasks or reaching milestones. (Cointelegraph)
NFT fragmentation service SZNS raises $4 million led by Framework Ventures and Dragonfly Capital
NFT fragmentation service SZNS announced the completion of $4 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures and Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Pear.vc and Baller Ventures. It is reported that SZNS allows users to create NFT "albums" or series, which can be subdivided into governance tokens and managed by DAO. There are currently many niche services on the market, including NFTX and Fractional, but according to SZNS founder John Bisu, the goal of the new platform is to expand functionality. He said that allowing users to obtain the benefits of NFT assets is a "very noble" thing, and the goal of SZNS is to create a smoother vault model that allows easy access to assets based on governance decisions.
The platform plans to launch a series of preset albums on September 30, focusing on certain NFT items, including CryptoPunks and Meebits. SZNS also plans to issue the native token SZNS. Album DAO will have the right to deposit 1% of governance tokens into the SZNS treasury in exchange for liquidity provision and dispute resolution management, effectively promoting SZNS to function as an NFT index token over time. With the development of the platform, the album of SZNS can also be used to mortgage NFT and vote to determine the use of funds in the DeFi ecosystem. Its governance token will serve as an alternative agent for NFT in the album vault, and will be listed on decentralized exchanges (such as SushiSwap). It is reported that 0xMaki, a core contributor to Sushi, is an advisor to SZNS. (CoinDesk)
Sharded Blockchain Platform Alephium Completes $3.6 Million Funding Led by Alphemy Capital
Alephium, a sharding blockchain platform, completed $3.6 million in financing through pre-sale of tokens, led by Alphemy Capital, with participation from White Paper Capital and Archery Blockchain. Another large part of the financing comes from individual subscriptions. 76% of investors provided funds of less than US$50,000, and more than half of the subscriptions were Swiss residents.
Alephium is an operational sharded blockchain that delivers versatility, scalability, and greater energy efficiency to Bitcoin core technology, along with better performance and secure smart contracts. Alephium also focuses on usability and accessibility to support DeFi applications and open protocols. Alephium is currently using a consensus mechanism called Proof of Less Work, which combines physical work with token economics to dynamically adjust the work required to mine new blocks to reduce its energy footprint. (Coinspeaker)
Decentralized lending protocol Pledge raises $3 million led by DHVC
Pledge, a decentralized lending protocol, announced the completion of a new round of financing of $3 million, led by DHVC, with participation from University of California, Berkeley professor Gary LaBlanc, Stanford University community members Ray Wong and Torsten Wendl. The financing will support Pledge's mission to become the top crypto asset lending platform, ultimately paving the way for the tokenization of real-world financial assets.
It is understood that Pledge was created by a group of Stanford University researchers focused on blockchain, including David Tse, Nicole Chang, Ray Wong and Torsten Wendl. Professor Gary LaBlanc, who participated in the vote, also contributed to the agreement. Using Binance Smart Chain, Pledge aims to facilitate long-term financing for cryptocurrency holders, and the researchers say the protocol allows users to diversify their portfolios with non-crypto assets without being affected by interest rate fluctuations. The native token of the Pledge protocol is Pledge Tokens (PLGR), with a total supply of 3 billion. (Cointelegraph)
According to official news, the DeFi lending agreement Vee Finance announced the completion of a new round of US$2.5 million in Series A financing, 7 O'Clock Capital, AC Capital, AP Capital, Avalanche Capital, LD Capital, NGC Ventures, Waterdrip Capital, BCA Investments, CatcherVC, Chronos Ventures, COBAK, Damo Labs, Dutch Crypto Investors, FBG Capital, Kryptos Research, Lancer Capital, Limestone Capital, MEXC Labs, Mint Ventures, Momentum 6, Ti Capital, ViaBTC Capital, etc. participated in the investment. At the same time, Vee.Finance announced that it will be officially launched on the Avalanche mainnet on September 14th.
It is understood that earlier this year, Vee Finance has completed a multi-million dollar seed round of financing, led by Huobi Ventures Blockchain Fund and Avalanche Asia Eco Fund AVATAR. Note: Vee.Finance is a DeFi lending platform based on Avalanche, which can provide users with mortgage loans, liquidity mining and leveraged trading services.
The multiplayer competitive NFT game Snook announced the completion of private equity financing of US$2.4 million, with participation from DAO Maker, Seedily.fund, TRUSTPAD, and Polygon.
Official news, Kawaii Islands, a GameFi project jointly launched by Imba Games Studio and Oraichain, completed a $2.4 million private placement round of financing, Mapleblock, DFG, Jsquare, Signum Capital, Hyperchain, AU21, X21, Kyros, Rikkei Capital, Shin Chan IEO/ICO Alerts , SkyVision and Paid Network participated in the vote.
Cyclos, the Solana ecological AMM protocol, completed $2.1 million in private and public financing, CMS Holdings, Hashkey, Solana Capital, Huobi Ventures, Coin98 Ventures, MXC, Gate.io, Skyvision Capital, Petrock Capital, Illusionist Group, Cryptomeria Capital, DigiStrats, Youbi Capital Participate in voting. Cyclos expects to release its V1 version in the third quarter of 2021.
According to previous reports, Cyclos, the Solana ecological AMM protocol, announced the completion of a $1 million seed round of financing, with participation from CMS, Hashkey, Solana Capital, Huobi Ventures, Coin98 Ventures, MXC, Gate.io, Illusionist Group, Skyvison Capital, and Petrock Capital. (U. Today)
Portugal's blockchain-based open innovation platform TAIKAI has completed 2 million euros in financing, led by FinLab EOS VC, with participation from existing investor Bright Pixel and new investor Portugal Ventures. The new funding will be used to fuel the platform’s expansion in Europe and Brazil, as well as develop corporate recruiting solutions. TAIKAI will also expand its development, marketing and sales teams to 24 by the end of 2021. It is reported that TAIKAI was established in 2018 and has grown into a global open innovation platform with more than 50,000 innovators. (EU-Startups)
According to official news, Duet Protocol, a multi-chain synthetic asset agreement, announced that it has completed a financing of 2 million US dollars. GSR, DHVC, LucidBlue Ventures, 3commas, Kernel Ventures, Consensus Lab, Angel One, NPC DAO, etc. participated in the investment. Previously, Duet Protocol has acquired from OmniLAB, DraperDragon, Everest Ventures Group, One Block Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, LD Capital, Zonff Partners, Cabin VC, MEXC, Bitmart, Foresight Ventures (Bitget), BlockVision (Bitwell), Mask Network founder Suji Yan, Cao Yin, founder of the Digital Renaissance Foundation, and other investors raised $3 million, bringing the total raised to $5 million.
The Chain Game Association and the one-stop GameFi platform GameFi announced the completion of a US$1.95 million seed round and private equity round of financing. DAO Maker, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures and many angel investors participated in the investment. Its operations in China will be handled by Basics Capital and OneMax Capital. GameFi is a blockchain game guild and one-stop GameFi platform, incubated by Icetea Labs. Its current ecosystem includes revenue unions, startup platforms, aggregators, marketplaces, and accelerators.
SolRazr Raises $1.5M to Build the First Decentralized Developer Ecosystem for Solana
SolRazr, a one-stop decentralized developer ecosystem based on Solana, announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$1.5 million. Investors include Moonrock Capital, Ascensive Assets, Morningstar Ventures, Genesis Block Ventures, Divergence, Genblock Capital, CMS Holdings, PANONY, Skynet Trading and angel investors Sam Kazemian (Frax Finance), Leo Cheng (CREAM), Santiago R Santos, Chris McCann.
Additionally, SolRazr released the first decentralized developer ecosystem for the Solana blockchain, including Launchpad, accelerators, and developer tools. In addition, SolRazr will also utilize NFTs on Solana to provide retail investors with a unique allocation model. SolRazr aims to provide a financing and development platform for projects built on Solana to support the growth of DeFi on this high-performance network. (Coin Gape)
Fluency, a developer of CBDC technology, announced that it has completed a seed round of financing of US$1.3 million at a valuation of US$23.5 million, with participation from a number of European investors. The company's proprietary technology, Aureum, is an enterprise smart contract platform that allows the issuance, distribution and trading of multiple CBDCs among central banks, commercial banks, merchants and consumers. Fluency CEO Inga Mullins said that its platform can help build and deploy a CBDC network from scratch, and provide the central bank with various flexible functions, including offline payment, cross-border CBDC remittance, policy isolation, privacy agreement, etc. Since the launch of Aureum's CBDC prototype in February 2021, several central banks in Europe and the United States have expressed interest in using Aureum as a CBDC technology provider. The company’s directors include former Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz and former German senior financial advisor Glenn Kim. Headquartered in London with subsidiaries in New York and Dublin. (finextra)
Metaverse virtual image production company DNABlock announced the completion of a US$1.2 million seed round of financing. Softbank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Spacecadet Ventures, Mike Shinoda, the creator of the rock band Linkin Park (Linkin Park), and Kevin Lin, the co-founder of Twitch, participated in the investment.
The company is working to make Metaverse avatars more inclusive, making it easier for creators to build high-quality 3D avatars that reflect diversity. DNABlock has produced projects for television platforms such as Fox and Apple TV+, as well as numerous games, record labels, fashion designers and award shows. The new funding will be used to bring the technology to the broader creator community and companies later this year. (Venture Beat)
Sypool Protocol, a synthetic asset management agreement based on Solana, announced the completion of a private round of financing. NGC Ventures, Bella Protocol, Evernew Capital, Solar Eco Fund, SkyVision Capital, Nabais Capital, WOO Network, Kronos Research, Aussie Capital, OIG Oracles Investment Group, Exnetwork Capital, Blockwall and others participated in the investment.
Cross-chain DeFi and NFT aggregator DeSpace completed seed round, strategic round and private equity financing. The financing amount was undisclosed. Lead Wallet, OMNI, Almora Capital, Criterion, Wu Blockchain, Dach Capital and BTA Ventures participated in the investment. Financing funds will be used for protocol development and ecological construction. DeSpace will be conducting a Token Generation Event (TGE) on the A2DAO, DuckStarter, and Poolz platforms from September 20th to 21st.
