Financing Weekly | 26 public financing events; Web3 social media platform Farcaster completes $150 million financing, led by Paradigm.

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 26 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide last week (5.20-5.26), with a total funding scale exceeding 270 million US dollars. The funding scale increased significantly compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:

• DeFi announced 8 investment and financing events, among which the Ethereum liquidity re-staking platform Kelp raised 9 million US dollars, led by SCB Limited and Laser Digital.
• Web3 Game Track announces 1 investment and financing event. RPG blockchain game Aria completed its seed round financing. Folius Ventures, Spartan Group, and Merit Circle led the investment;
• NFT domain announced 1 financing event, Singapore collectible design company Mighty Jaxx has once again raised $11 million in Series A+ financing extension.
• DePIN announced 1 fundraising event, with Blockless, a project focused on providing computing power support, raising $8 million in two early-stage financing rounds.
• Infrastructure and Tools track announced 8 financings, among which zero-knowledge hardware startup Cysic completed a pre-A round financing of $12 million, led by HashKey Capital and OKX Ventures.
• In other blockchain/encryption applications, there have been 8 financing announcements, including a $150 million financing for the Web3 social media platform Farcaster, led by Paradigm with participation from a16z crypto.

DeFi

Kelp DAO, a liquidity staking platform, raised $9 million through a private sale of tokens.

Kelp DAO, an Ethereum liquidity redeployment platform, has raised $9 million in a private sale token round, with a valuation of $90 million. The financing was led by SCB Limited from the Bahamas and Laser Digital, the encryption department of Nomura Global, with a joint investment of $3.5 million. Other investors include Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Draper Dragon, etc.

Kelp co-founder Amitej Gajjala said that this round of financing was completed in March, when Kelp’s total value locked (TVL) was about $300 million, and it has now increased to about $961 million. Kelp plans to use this funding to expand its liquidity staking services on blockchains such as Bitcoin, Solana, and BNB Chain, and is expected to launch 1-2 new chains in the third quarter of this year.

ELFi Protocol, a decentralized derivatives trading platform, has raised a total of 5 million US dollars through two rounds of strategic financing.

ELFi Protocol, a Decentralization derivatives trading platform, announced the closing of two rounds of strategic funding for a total of $5 million, the latest of which was led by IDG Capital and KuCoin Ventures. ELFi Protocol has been launched on the Arbitrum Testnet and is undergoing public beta testing of Genesis NFTs.

Scroll ecosystem DeFi project Pencils Protocol raised $2.1 million in seed funding, with participation from OKX Ventures and others.

Pencils Protocol, a Scroll ecosystem Decentralized Finance project, announced the closing of a $2.1 million seed round that is now valued at $25 million, with participation from OKX Ventures, Animoca Brands, Galxe, Gate.io Labs, Aquarius, Presto, and Agarwood, as well as Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng and V Fund partner Ashely Individual investors such as Xiong, David Gan, co-founder of Inception Capital, Ryan Li, founder of Cyberconnect, and Lucia Zhang, co-founder of Arcanum Capital, participated in the investment. According to reports, through the cooperation with Scroll, Pencils Protocol uses zero-knowledge technology to build a Layer-2 solution, focusing on scalable private dApp development and fair release principles, and providing users with on-chain asset services.

DeFi platform Zaros raises $1.8 million in funding

Zaros, a DeFi platform, has completed a $1.8 million financing round with participation from SNZ Holdings, Seven Capital, Cogitent Ventures, DCI Capital, Antony Sassano, Fernando Martinelli, Kieran Warwick, Andy Chen, and Kevin Lu. Zaros aims to enhance perpetual futures trading by using Liquidity Staked Token (LST) and Liquidity Re-Staked Token (LRT). Zaros introduces Unilateral Liquidity Pool (ZLP Vault) for LST tokens such as Lido and LRT tokens such as EigenLayer. Liquidity Providers (LP) earn actual ETH returns through trading fees on the perpetual futures market. These LPs act as market makers and receive ERC20 tokens representing their equity, thus maintaining DeFi’s composability.

Options protocol IVX completes $1.2 million seed round financing, led by Animoca Ventures and AVID3

IVX, a native options protocol based on Berachain, announced the completion of a $1.2 million seed round of financing. Animoca Ventures and AVID3 led the investment, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Web3Port, Cogitent Ventures, Forbole, SerDAO, Autistic Waterfowl Venture Capital, and several angel investors. IVX is built on the Berachain Polaris EVM technology stack and provides zero-day-to-expiration (0DTE) options for encrypted assets in a permissionless and secure manner. Buyers have no liquidation risk and can achieve high leverage exposure with minimal capital. The IVX Artio testnet is currently open.

Bitcoin infrastructure platform RunesFi completes $400,000 financing, with participation from Cogitent Ventures, etc.

Bitcoin infrastructure platform RunesFi announced the completion of a $400,000 financing round, with investments from Cogitent Ventures, Oddiyana Ventures, Lavender Capital, WeeHODL, Zephyrus Capital, and Samurai Starter. It is reported that RunesFi primarily utilizes the Runes protocol to support various infrastructure products and functions in the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem.

Web3 Game

RPG blockchain game Aria completes seed round financing, led by Folius Ventures, Spartan Group, and Merit Circle.

According to the official Twitter account of Aria, the RPG blockchain game Aria announced the completion of seed round financing. This round of financing was led by Folius Ventures, Spartan Group, and Merit Circle. Institutions such as Galaxy Interactive, Animoca Brands, Formless Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Selini Capital, Bitscale Capital, LiquidX, 32-Bit Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Miles Deutscher, also participated. The amount of financing has not been disclosed.

NFT

Mighty Jaxx, a Singaporean design company specializing in blockchain collectibles, has raised an additional $11 million, bringing the total funding from Series A+ round to $31 million.

Singapore-based collectible design company Mighty Jaxx has raised another $11 million in its extended Series A funding round. In March 2022, the company secured $20 million in the initial round of its Series A funding. With this latest funding, Mighty Jaxx has raised over $51 million to date. Sunova Capital and East Ventures participated in the new funding round. East Ventures led the first round of funding, with investors such as Mirana Ventures, KB Investment, and Korea Investment Partners also participating. The closing valuation of this round exceeded $200 million, but Mighty Jaxx did not disclose the final valuation. In addition to the UK, Mighty Jaxx also has offices in China and the United States and has been doing business in these countries since its inception. The company plans to expand its operations in the US and Europe this year and use the new funds to support this growth.

The company was founded in 2012 and collaborated with well-known companies such as Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, and Netflix to create limited edition collectibles. Its customers are spread across 90 countries. After entering the NFT market through series adventures like Inked Stories: Medusa, Mighty Jaxx now focuses on blockchain infrastructure. This involves registering their collectibles on the blockchain.

DePIN

Blockless, a DePIN project, has completed an $8 million financing round and plans to launch its Mainnet in the third quarter of this year.

Blockless, a DePIN project that focuses on providing Computing Power support, announced that it has raised $8 million in two early-stage financing rounds. Blockless stated that NGC Ventures led the pre-seed round of financing worth $3 million, while M31 Capital and Frachtis jointly led the seed round of financing worth $5 million. Other investors in these two rounds of financing include No Limit Holdings, MH Ventures, Interop Ventures, and Plassa Capital. Butian Li, co-founder of Blockless, said that the testnet is planned to be launched in the coming weeks, and the mainnet and the native BLESS token will be launched in the third quarter.

Infrastructure & Tools

ZK hardware startup Cysic completes $12 million pre-A round of financing, led by HashKey Capital and OKX Ventures

Zero-Knowledge (ZK) hardware startup Cysic announced the completion of a $12 million pre-Series A financing round, led by HashKey Capital and OKX Ventures. The new funds will be used to accelerate the generation of ZK proofs in a faster, more cost-effective, user-friendly, and decentralized manner. Earlier reports stated that Cysic completed a $6 million seed round in February last year, with Polychain Capital leading the investment and participation from investors such as Hashkey, SNZ Holding, A&T Capital, ABCDE, and Web3.com Ventures.

Layer 2 network Plume Network completes $10 million seed round financing, led by Haun Ventures

Plume Network, a Layer 2 network focused on bringing real-world assets (RWA) onto the blockchain, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Haun Ventures. Other participating investors include Galaxy Ventures, Superscrypt, A Capital, SV Angel, Portal Ventures, and Reciprocal Ventures. Plume Network is a modular Layer 2 network compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), aiming to compliantly bring various asset categories onto the blockchain through efficient and secure blockchain technology. Currently, Plume is in a private testnet, with over 80 RWA and DeFi projects being built on its network, including collectibles, alternative assets, synthetic assets, luxury goods, real estate, lending protocols, and perpetual decentralized exchanges.

Interoperability protocol Stripchain completes $10 million financing, led by Sora Ventures

Stripchain raised $10 million in its latest funding round, aiming to simplify the user experience of blockchain. This funding round was led by Sora Ventures, with participants including Hyperithm, Shima Capital, Hypersphere, Mechanism, Ascending Assets, as well as angel investors Santiago Santos, Stephane Gosselin from Frontier Research, and Ryan Selkis from Messari. Stripchain is an interoperability protocol that aims to achieve large-scale chain abstraction, allowing users to use decentralized applications without having to focus on the underlying blockchain system. The protocol is led by the pseudonymous researcher “0xnovachrono,” as well as Isa Sertkaya and Narayana Pryusty. Stripchain is based on a system called stripVM, which allows applications to communicate and coordinate across different protocols, with a focus on the transaction layer and the use of authorization proof systems. Stripchain is currently in private beta testing and is expected to launch a testnet in the coming months.

Fantom Foundation Completes $10 Million Strategic Financing, Led by Hashed

Fantom Foundation has completed a strategic financing of $10 million, led by Hashed, with participation from UOB Ventures, Signum Capital, Aave Foundation, as well as angel investors such as Stani Kulechov, Robert Leshner, Michael Egorov, Fernando Martinelli, Tarun Chitra, and Sam Kazemian. The funds raised in this round will be used to support the Sonic Foundation, strategic growth, and ecosystem development, with a focus on enhancing the liquidity of automated market makers and blue-chip pools in the currency market. In addition, the Fantom Foundation announced plans to establish the Sonic Foundation and Sonic Labs before launching the Sonic blockchain. The Sonic Foundation will manage governance and funds, while Sonic Labs will focus on the development of decentralized applications.

Decentralized Governance Infrastructure Dora Factory Completes $10 Million Strategic Financing

Decentralized governance infrastructure Dora Factory announced the completion of a $10 million strategic financing. This round of financing was participated by Nomad Capital, No Limit Holdings, Cloud 9 Capital, UVM Signum Blockchain Fund of Singapore Dahua Bank Web3 Venture Capital, Longling Capital of Cai Wensheng, Cosmos ecological OG Interop Ventures, and Calvin Liu, co-founder of Eigenlayer. The raised funds will be used to accelerate the strategic expansion of Dora Factory’s decentralized governance and public goods funding technology system. Dora Factory is a decentralized governance and public goods technology protocol. Its core products include the open, permissionless, and governance-focused Cosmos SDK application chain Dora Vota, the anonymous and privacy-preserving voting infrastructure aMACI, and the multi-chain quadratic funding for democratizing public goods funding processes, etc. This financing will further drive the application and long-term strategic expansion of Dora Factory’s technology stack.

MultiVM completes $6.9 million financing, with participation from Inception Capital

Web3 venture capital firm Inception Capital and Lattice have jointly participated in the $6.9 million early financing of Ethereum L2 execution environment MultiVM. MultiVM is building a new type of ZK Rollup on Ethereum, which unifies multiple virtual machines and languages, enabling EVM developers to expand beyond the Ethereum ecosystem, while non-EVM developers can also expand into the Ethereum ecosystem.

MANTRA completes a new round of strategic financing, with Laser Digital participating

MANTRA announced that it has completed a new round of strategic financing, with Laser Digital, a digital asset subsidiary of global financial services giant Nomura Securities, participating. The aim is to accelerate MANTRA’s goal of building the RWA Layer 1 blockchain in the Middle East and Asia markets. The specific amount of financing and valuation have not been disclosed at present.

Open Source EVM blockchain platform Nexis Network completes PE Round financing, with Castrum Istanbul participating

Nexis Network, an open-source EVM blockchain platform, announced the completion of its private sale financing round with investment from Castrum Istanbul. The specific amount and valuation have not been disclosed. Nexis Network is designed for decentralized projects and applications, aiming to create a transparent, community-driven ecosystem. The platform supports Ethereum-based dApps and DeFi protocols, facilitating transactions, payments, and stake consensus using its native token NZT.

Other

“#### Social Media:”

Web3 social media platform Farcaster completes $150 million financing, led by Paradigm

Farcaster, a Web3 social media platform, has completed a $150 million financing round, led by Paradigm with participation from a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, Variant, Standard Crypto, and others. The new funds will be used to increase daily active users and hire more engineers. Farcaster is a decentralized social media platform based on Optimism, which not only allows users to have better control over their data but also enables developers to enhance the platform through mini applications. According to previous reports, in March this year, insiders revealed that Farcaster developer Merkle Manufactory was about to complete a financing round led by Paradigm, with a valuation of approximately $1 billion. Farcaster previously raised $30 million in July 2022, led by a16z.

Encryption Applications:

US blockchain company Alphaledger completes $9.5 million Series A financing round

Alphaledger, a US blockchain startup, announced the completion of a $9.5 million Series A financing round, led by EJF Capital and participated by KDX. At the same time, Alphaledger announced a partnership with Tradeweb Markets, one of the major off-exchange fixed-income securities markets. Alphaledger’s platform aims to simplify the process of asset issuance and settlement, with a focus on improving transparency, reducing costs, and decreasing settlement time for financial institutions. It is reported that Alphaledger previously issued the first blockchain-based US municipal bond and completed a seed financing round of nearly $6 million in 2021. Tradeweb currently supports approximately $1.5 trillion (nominal value) of transactions per day.

Web3天气网络WeatherXM has completed a Series A financing of $7.7 million, led by Lightspeed Faction.

WeatherXM, a cryptocurrency-driven weather station network and weather data provider based in Athens, Greece, raised $7.7 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Protocol Labs, Borderless Capital, Arca, Alumni Ventures, Placeholder VC, and Red Beard Ventures, among others. WeatherXM plans to use this funding to expand its global weather station network, enhance data collection and analysis capabilities, and provide users with more accurate and real-time weather information.

Web3 Entertainment Studio Completes $1.9 Million Financing

Web3 Entertainment Studio and technology company Feature has completed a financing of $1.9 million, with participation from InterVest, 2PunksCapital, Avalanche, Acme Innovation, and Sterling.VC. Feature uses its Smart Content™ technology to connect audiences with brands, generating automatic rewards for every interaction and creating new sources of income.

Inscription & Rune:

The RunesTerminal project on the Rune Launchpad has announced the completion of a round of financing, with investors including Cogitent Ventures, etc.

RunesTerminal announced the completion of a round of financing, with the specific amount undisclosed. The investors include Cogitent Ventures, CMS Holdings, Waterdrip Capital, IAngels, Pentos Ventures, Zephyrus Capital, THE CMS, Ran Neuner (CNBC host), Laser Digital, GBV Capital, DuckDAO, Fusion7 Venture Capital, Pragma Ventures, etc. According to the introduction, RunesTerminal is the Rune Launchpad project and plans to launch RunesScan, RunesPad, RunesEtcher, and RunesBook. RunesTerminal announced last week that it is integrating the Runes protocol on the Sei Network.

Service Consultation:

Encryption governance consulting company MetaLeX completes $2.75 million seed round financing

MetaLeX, founded by cryptocurrency lawyer Gabriel Shapiro, announced the completion of a $2.75 million seed round of financing, led by Cyber Fund, valuing the company at $27.5 million. MetaLeX is a hybrid enterprise that combines a law firm and a technology company, dedicated to providing standardized governance solutions for cryptocurrency projects in the process of decentralization.

Web3 freelance service platform Sorbet completes a new round of financing, with Adaverse participating.

Web3 freelance service platform Sorbet announced the completion of a new round of financing, with participation from venture capital fund and accelerator Adaverse. The specific amount and valuation information have not been disclosed. It is reported that this investment is also part of Adaverse’s $10 million investment plan. By eliminating freelancer fees and intermediaries, Sorbet aims to encourage more creative professionals to enter the Web3 industry. Its tools allow freelancers to seamlessly receive payment in stablecoins and engage in direct and fair interactions with clients.

Mining encryption:

SolarX raised $3 million through Tenset Launchpad

SolarX, an environmentally friendly crypto mining project, announced that it has completed a $3 million financing through Tenset Launchpad and joined the Tenset Incubator. It is reported that SolarX is mainly promoting a decentralized mining model based on solar power. The new funds raised in this round will be used to launch its native token and introduce corresponding services and products.

CeFi

Turkish financial technology company Colendi completes $65 million Series B financing, led by Citi Ventures

Colendi, a Turkish fintech startup, raised $65 million in its latest Series B financing round, valuing the company at $700 million. The financing was led by Citi Ventures, the venture capital arm of Citigroup, with other investors including Migros Ticaret AS, Sepil Ventures, Re-Pie Asset Management, Finberg, and Hedef Holding. The Turkish banking regulatory authority has approved Colendi’s application to establish a digital bank by 2023. The company plans to have a dual listing in Istanbul and London and aims to be ready for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) by 2026. It launched a new round of financing in March with a target of raising over $150 million by the end of this year. Tekmen expects that after this financing round, Colendi’s valuation will reach $1 billion, making it a “unicorn” company.

Colendi currently has 17 million users in Turkey and aims to expand to populous emerging markets such as Pakistan and Indonesia in the future, ultimately achieving the goal of 1 billion users. This financing will drive Colendi’s mission to become a leading digital bank entity in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and Turkic countries.

(Note: The amount raised by this project is not included in last week’s total financing.)

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