Author: Jane, Darren
According to incomplete statistics from Crypto DAO, there were more than 14 investment and financing events in the global encryption industry last week (9.25-10.1), with a total financing amount of approximately US$80 million. Both the number and amount of financing have declined, of which the infrastructure track accounted for Significantly more prominent than. Through combing and screening, CryptoDAO selected 10 representative financing projects from the numerous financing information last week and compiled them into a table as follows:
In addition, Crypto DAO summarized the financing trends of last week, with the following specific analysis:
Last week, the financing of the underlying infrastructure track was very hot, and the types of projects that announced financing information included account abstraction, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), oracles, etc. Among them, Supra, an oracle and VRF service provider, announced that it had completed tens of millions of US dollars in financing.
DeFi has seen a significant rebound in popularity compared to the previous week, with the number of announced financing accounting for nearly 30%. Among them, Restake Finance, a liquidity re-pledge platform supported by EigenLayer, announced the completion of its seed round of financing. With the launch of the project, re-pledge is likely to become a hot topic in the industry for some time to come.
The number of disclosed financings in blockchain games, NFT and metaverse tracks has dropped significantly, but large financing projects have emerged. Among them, Web3 startup IYK completed a seed round of financing of more than 10 million US dollars led by a16z Crypto.
How to leverage the advantages of blockchain technology in other application scenarios is still a direction that many entrepreneurs are exploring. The project Lei Xiang announced last week that it had raised funds, covering concepts such as token-based corporate financing and employee participation, Bitcoin insurance, and blockchain cloud SaaS. Among them, Bitcoin insurance platform AnchorWatch raised $3 million in funding led by Ten31.
For more investment and financing details, please see below:
1. Infrastructure & Tools
Project name: Pimlico
Official website: https://www.pimlico.io/
Attention: High
On September 25, account abstraction developer Pimlico completed a $1.6 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation, with participation from Safe and Consensys and more than a dozen angel investors. It is understood that Pimlico mainly provides functions including ERC-20 token Gas payment, multi-signature scheme, social recovery and spending limit.
Project name: Fhenix
Official website: https://www.fhenix.io/
Attention: High
On September 26, Fhenix, the first blockchain powered by fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), completed a $7 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Collider Ventures, with participation from Node Capital, Bankless, HackVC, TaneLabs and Metaplanet. It is understood that the funds from this round of financing will be used to introduce a public testnet for the Fhenix network early next year and support ecosystem application development.
Project name: Supra
Official website: https://supraoracles.com/
Attention: High
On September 28, oracle and VRF service provider Supra announced that it had completed over $24 million in financing. Investors in this round of financing include Animoca Brands, BCW, Coinbase Ventures, FiveT Fintech (formerly Avaloq Ventures), Galaxy Interactive, Hashed, HashKey, Huobi Ventures, No Limit Holdings and other companies and institutions. It is understood that Supra aims to provide DeFi developers and end consumers with provably fair, high-performance oracle services.
Project name: Rated
Official website: https://www.rated.network/home
Attention: Medium
On September 27, Ethereum web browser Rated announced the completion of a $12.89 million Series A financing, led by Archetype, with seed investors Placeholder, 1confirmation, Cherry and Semantic, as well as new backers Robot Ventures, Chorus One, Factor and Maelstrom participating. It is understood that Rated Labs mainly provides Ethereum web browsers, data APIs and oracles, and plans to expand its products to multiple public chains, including Polygon, Solana, Cosmos and Polkadot, next year.
Project name: ParaX
Official website: https://parax.ai/
Attention: Medium
On September 30, Web3 super application ParaX announced the completion of a strategic round of financing, with Metalfa, a Hong Kong digital asset wealth management company, participating in the investment, but the specific amount of this financing has not been disclosed. It is understood that ParaX is a merger of the NFT lending protocol ParaSpace and the Polkadot ecosystem DeFi protocol Parallel Finance. It is a Web3 super application powered by account abstraction and zkVM. The goal is to provide users with the ParaX ecosystem covering account abstraction, meta user interface, zkVM, etc., so that users can more conveniently manage their multi-chain assets and identities.
2. DeFi/Staking
Project name: Restake Finance
Official website: https://www.restakefinance.com/
Attention: High
On September 28, Restake Finance, a liquidity re-pledge platform, announced the completion of a $500,000 seed round of financing, with participation from AlfaDAO, DCD, Yields and More, and Moni. It is understood that Restake Finance is supported by EigenLayer.
Project Name: Avantis Labs
Official website: https://www.avantisfi.com/#
Attention: High
On September 26, DeFi derivatives trading platform Avantis Labs completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Coinbase's Base Ecosystem Fund, and Modular Capital. It is understood that the funds from this round of financing will be used to develop its flagship product: perpetual contract trading and market making protocol Avantis.
Project Name: Bril Finance
Official website: https://www.bril.finance/
Attention: Medium
On September 27, DeFi portfolio management startup Bril Finance completed a $3 million seed round of financing, with participation from FalconX, Kosmos Ventures and Algorand Foundation. It is understood that Bril Finance is a decentralized portfolio management platform that uses algorithms and automatic token deployment to adjust users' positions. It is understood that the project is working with Sei and plans to expand to a multi-chain ecosystem.
Project Name: Zunami Protocol
Official website: https://www.zunami.io/
Attention: Medium
On September 27, the decentralized stablecoin yield protocol Zunami Protocol announced the completion of its angel round of financing, with Cream Finance as one of the investors, and individual investors including Curve founder Michael Egorov, Mr. Block, Convex members with Twitter names C2tP and Winthorpe, Twitter name Hubirb, and other Stake DAO contributors, AladdinDAO core contributor Pauls, etc. It is understood that Zunami V2 is scheduled to be launched in November.
3. Blockchain Games
Project name: Fableborne
Official website: https://fableborne.com/
Attention: Medium
On September 28, the blockchain game Fableborne developed by Web3 game studio Pixion Games updated its financing information, saying that it has completed $7.8 million in financing this year, with investors including Mechanism Capital, VGC, Merit Circle, Eldridge, GSR, Zee Prime Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Builder Capital, Avalanche Foundation's Blizzard Fund, Shima Capital and ReadyPlayerDAO. It is understood that the company completed a $5.5 million seed round of financing in June this year.
4. NFT & Web3 Creation & Metaverse
Project name: IYK
Official website: https://www.iyk.app/
Attention: High
On September 29, Web3 startup IYK completed a $16.8 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from 1kx, Synergis Capital, Collabcurrency, Lattice Capital and gmoney. It is understood that IYK is a Web3 startup founded in 2021 that provides tools for brands such as Adidas and Johnnie Walker to help connect the real world and the digital world. The company has currently recruited more than 100 creators from industries such as fashion, music and art. In order to attract more brands and creators, it is launching a self-service platform to help create digital physical experiences.
Five **, other **
Project name: Tokenize.it
Official website: https://www.tokenize.it/
Attention: Medium
On October 1, Tokenize.it, a token-based corporate financing and employee engagement platform, announced the completion of a 2 million euro seed round of financing, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), w3fund, Seed + Speed, and a group of business angel investors. It is understood that Tokenize.it provides standardized financing procedures that meet compliance requirements for corporate investment transactions through profit participation rights mapped on tokens, and ensures the automated execution of financing transactions based on blockchain smart contract technology, thereby bringing better trust and transparency.
Project name: AnchorWatch
Official website: https://www.anchorwatch.com/
Attention: Medium
On September 26, Bitcoin insurance platform AnchorWatch completed a $3 million financing, led by Ten31, with participation from Axiom BTC, Timechain, Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, UTXO Management and other companies. It is understood that AnchorWatch's proprietary Trident Vault software provides Bitcoin holders with a protocol-native custody solution that is backed by regulated, high-quality insurance.
Project name: Cygnetise
Official website: https://www.cygnetise.com/
Attention: Medium
On September 25, Cygnetise, a blockchain cloud SaaS platform headquartered in London, announced the completion of a £2.5 million Pre-A round of financing, led by British investment group Adjuvo and participated by Massive and others. It is understood that Cygnetise uses its digital blockchain technology to improve and optimize the authorized signature management (ASM) process, helping corporate operations and finance departments to digitally share authorized signatory information with banks and other counterparties, thereby improving efficiency, security and operational excellence.
