Funding Frenzy: A Look at This Week's Venture Capital Deals
This week saw a flurry of venture capital (VC) activity, with startups across various industries receiving funding. Here's a breakdown of the notable deals, categorized by their area of focus.
Category | Sum of Money Raised this Round |
|---|---|
DePIN | 3,000,000 |
Law | 2,750,000 |
Payments | 3,000,000 |
Staking | 9,000,000 |
Trading | 1,800,000 |
Web3 | 17,700,000 |
ZK | 12,000,000 |
DApps | 10,000,000 |
Total | 59,250,000 |
DePIN
Blockless ($3M Pre-Seed): Blockless, a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), secured $3 million in a pre-seed funding round. NGC Ventures and M31 Capital were the lead investors. Blockless aims to enable users to provide computing power to applications via its network automatically.
DeFi (Staking & Trading)
Kelp DAO ($9M Seed): Kelp DAO, a staking platform focused on Web3 infrastructure, raised $9 million in seed funding. SCB Limited was the lead investor. Web3 refers to the next iteration of the internet, characterized by decentralization and user ownership of data. Staking refers to the process of locking up crypto holdings to support a blockchain network and earn rewards. Kelp DAO's funding reflects the growing importance of staking in the Web3 ecosystem, particularly as DeFi and other Web3 applications gain traction.
Zaros ($1.8m, Seed): Zaros, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform known for its Perpetuals DEX and Boosted (Re)Staking Vaults, secured funding from SNZ Holdings, to enhance perpetual futures trading through the use of Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) and Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs).
DApps
Fantom Foundation ($10m Venture Round): To accelerate Sonic Network's growth, the Fantom ecosystem announced a $10 million funding round. Sonic Labs is tasked with the development and expansion of decentralized apps (dApps). Led by Hashed, the round included contributions from UOB Ventures, Signum Capital, Aave Foundation, and angel investors like Aave CEO Stani Kulechov, Superstate CEO Robert Leshner, and Curve DAO Founder Michael Egorov, among others.
Web3
Weather XM ($7.7M Series A): Weather XM, a Web3-based weather data marketplace, secured $7.7 million in a Series A funding round. Lightspeed Faction was the lead investor. Blockchain technology is being explored to create more transparent and efficient marketplaces for data. Weather XM's funding highlights the potential of Web3 to disrupt traditional data markets, including weather data, which is crucial for various industries like agriculture and insurance.
Dora Factory ($10m, Venture Round): Dora Factory secured funding from a consortium of investors including Nomad Capital, No Limit Holdings, Sky9 Capital to name a few to develop protocols and infrastructures that facilitate decentralized governance and effective funding across global hacker movements, open-source communities, and Web3 public goods.
Payments
El Dorado ($3M Seed): El Dorado, a crypto payments infrastructure provider, raised $3 million in seed funding. Multicoin Capital and Coinbase Ventures were the lead investors. Enabling seamless crypto payments for businesses is essential for mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. El Dorado's funding demonstrates investor confidence in solutions that bridge the gap between traditional finance and the crypto world.
Law
MetaLex ($2.75M Seed): MetaLex, a hybrid law firm and tech company, secured $2.75 million in seed funding from Cyber Fund. The funding will allow MetaLex to develop standardized governance tools for crypto groups striving for decentralization. As decentralization evolves, legal issues surrounding intellectual property, privacy, and user conduct will become increasingly prominent.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)
Cysic ($12M Seed): ZKP startup Cysic closed a $12 million seed funding round led by HashKey Capital and OKX Ventures. ZKPs are a cryptographic technique that allows one party to prove to another party that a statement is true, without revealing the underlying information. ZKPs have a wide range of applications, including privacy-preserving blockchain transactions and enhancing scalability. Cysic's funding will allow it to tackle a major challenge in the blockchain industry: the slow speed of generating ZK proofs using traditional CPUs.
Mixed investment rounds this week ranging from DeFi, Web3 and DApp ecosystem builds. Total funding amounts are also lower than usual with only $59.25m making news this week.
Overall, the crypto funding landscape continues to be diverse, with continued strong interest in DeFi and Web3 projects plus infrastructure, and solutions that bridge the gap between traditional finance and the crypto world.
A central focus of investor activity in the cryptocurrency space is the evaluation of new crypto projects to invest in, particularly those with huge potential. This blog provides insight into what new ventures are benefiting from venture capital support (VC funding in crypto). These new crypto projects, funded by professional investors, can dictate the next narrative in crypto and the next big crypto movers.
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