Author: Jane, Darren
According to incomplete statistics from CryptoDAO, there were about 17 investment and financing events in the crypto industry last week (0731-0806), and the total financing amount dropped to about 70 million US dollars. Through sorting and screening, CryptoDAO selected 10 representative financing projects from the numerous financing information last week and compiled them into the following table:
In addition, Crypto DAO summarized the financing trends of last week, with the following specific analysis:
Institutions continue to lay out infrastructure & tools, accounting for nearly 30% of the financing. Among them, it is worth noting that the open source software security solution Socket completed its A round of financing led by a16z, and the privacy data verification protocol zkPass participated in by Binance Labs.
**DeFi's popularity has declined rapidly, with only two projects completing financing last week. **Specifically, they are Solv Protocol, a decentralized platform for creating, managing, and trading financial NFTs on the chain, and D8X, a perpetual contract DEX protocol on Polygon.
**Last week, the types of blockchain game financing included single-theme games, game platforms that increase player engagement, and social games. **Among them, the most discussed was the Web3 Mahjong game Mahjong Meta, which completed a $12 million financing. The project was jointly led by Dragonfly Capital and Folius Ventures.
NFT and metaverse-related projects have significantly decreased. Last week, only music royalty investment platform ANote Music completed financing on this track.
How to leverage the advantages of blockchain technology in other application scenarios is still a direction for many entrepreneurs to explore. Projects that completed financing last week include Emtech, an infrastructure provider for African central banks, Orbital, a blockchain payment platform, Marquee, a decentralized insurance platform, and VIP3, a Web3 equity aggregation platform.
For more investment and financing details, please see below:
1. Infrastructure & Tools
Project name: Socket
Official website: https://socket.dev/
Attention: Very high
On August 2, the open source software security solution Socket announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other investors include Abstract Ventures, Wndrco, Unusual Ventures, and angel investors including Box co-founder Aaron Levie, Figma co-founder Dylan Field, Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, etc. It is understood that Socket's current customers include Metamask, Brave, Magic Eden, Figma and Vercel.
Project name: zkPass
Official website: https://zkpass.org/home
Attention: High
On August 3, the privacy data verification protocol zkPass announced the completion of a $2.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Binance Labs, Sequoia China, OKX Ventures, dao5, Susquehanna International Group, Cypher Capital, Leland Ventures, and Blockchain Founders Fund. zkPass uses a combination of three technologies: zero-knowledge proof, multi-party computation, and three-party transport layer security. This enables users to disclose personal data on any website without having to disclose it themselves or upload documents.
Project name: Hushmesh
Official website: https://www.hushmesh.com/
Attention: Medium
On August 3, key management digital infrastructure Hushmesh announced the completion of a $5.2 million financing round, led by Paladin Capital Group and participated by Akamai Technologies. It is understood that Hushmesh will use the funds to develop Mesh, a global information space with built-in automated security features that allows people and organizations to operate online without worrying about malicious attacks or data leaks.
Project name: Terminal 3
Official website: https://www.terminal3.io/
Attention: Medium
On August 2, Terminal 3, a decentralized user data infrastructure service provider headquartered in Hong Kong, announced the completion of an oversubscribed Pre-Seed round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclosed. 500 Global, CMCC Global, Consensys Mesh, Bixin Ventures, BlackPine, DWeb3, Hard Yaka, Bored Room Ventures, Mozaik Capital and others participated in the investment. It is understood that Terminal 3 aims to replace the centralized data storage model and use decentralized storage and zero-knowledge proof to help enterprises solve the compliance and security issues of user data.
Project name: Edgeln
Official website: https://edgein.io/
Attention: Medium
On August 4, EdgeIn, a Web3 and AI database platform, is raising $1.5 million in Pre-Seed funding at a company valuation of $8 million. It has raised $400,000 so far, with angel investors including Mike Dinsdale (Akkadian Ventures), Mike Borozdin (DocuSign, Google), Jeremy Clover (Circle), Pedram Amini, Bayo Okusanya and Ulises Merino Núñez. EdgeIn aims to further enhance the transparency of Web3 companies, funds, organizational management and other data. It has indexed more than 90% of Web3 market financing and company information, and has listed about 50,000 Web3 companies and projects.
2. DeFi/Staking
Project Name: Solv Protocol
Official website: https://solv.finance/
Attention: High
On August 1, Solv Protocol, a decentralized platform for creating, managing and trading financial NFTs on the chain, completed a new round of financing of US$6 million, with participation from Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Nomura Securities, UOB Venture Management, Mirana Ventures, Emirates Consortium, Matrix Partners, Apollo Capital, HashCIB, Geek Cartel and Bytetrade Labs. Solv aims to build a trustless institutional DeFi platform to integrate brokers, underwriters, market makers and custodians to connect the liquidity of DeFi, CeFi and TradFi.
Project name: D8X
Official website: https://www.d8x.exchange/
Attention: Medium
On August 4, D8X, a perpetual contract DEX protocol on Polygon, completed a pre-seed round of financing of US$1.5 million, led by Polygon Ventures, with participation from Axelar Network, Swissborg Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Veris Ventures, G1 Ventures, Pragma Ventures, CryptoDiscover, etc. It is understood that D8X is an institutional-grade perpetual contract DEX protocol on Polygon zkEVM, aiming to bring DeFi to institutional investors. Currently, D8X has been launched on the Polygon testnet, with collateral assets of USDC or MATIC, and the order types provided include market and spot orders, with AMM as the counterparty in each transaction.
3. Games
Project Name: Mahjong Meta
Official website: https://www.mjmeta.io/
Attention: High
On August 3, Mahjong Meta, a Web3 mahjong game based on the Ethereum network, announced the completion of a $12 million financing round, led by Dragonfly Capital and Folius Ventures, with participation from Meteorite Labs, Find Satoshi Labs, Parallel Ventures and Emoote. Mahjong Meta is a Web3 game platform dedicated to mahjong e-sports and an on-chain mahjong theme park for all players.
Project name: Conductive.ai
Official website: https://www.conductive.ai/
Attention: Medium
On August 2, Conductive.ai, a developer of Web3 game engagement platform, completed its seed round of financing, led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Kraken Ventures, Bixin Ventures, Sound Ventures, Rubik Ventures, Sfermion, Oyster Ventures, Blue Lion Global, Axia8 Ventures, Unanimous Capital and Everest Ventures. Conductive.ai's vision is to solve the biggest problems in the current gaming field by improving user acquisition efficiency and enhancing player engagement.
Project name: DogeWalk
Official website: https://dogewalk.io/
Attention: Medium
On August 1, DogeWalk, a Web3 social game focused on pet dogs, completed a $1 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $10 million, led by ByteTrade Lab. In DogeWalk, users can equip themselves with NFTs in the form of virtual dogs. When walking the dog, playing, and sharing pet moments, users can earn tokens, which can be used in the game or to purchase real dog food, supplies, services, etc. The beta version is now available for trial.
4. NFT & Web3 Creation & Metaverse
Project Name: ANote Music
Official website: https://www.anotemusic.com/
Attention: Medium
On August 1, music royalty investment platform ANote Music completed a 3.3 million euro (about 3.64 million U.S. dollars) financing, with participation from Algorand Ventures and ACME Innovation under the Algorand Foundation. ANote Music will use the Algorand blockchain to support related transactions and payment distribution. In addition, ANote Music also announced that it has received a youth innovation enterprise grant from Luxinnovation, the Luxembourg National Innovation Agency.
V. Others
Project Name: Emtech
Official website: https://emtech.com/
Attention: High
On August 3, Emtech, an African central bank infrastructure provider, announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Matrix Partners India, with participation from BTN, Vested, Equity Alliance, LoftyInc Capital, etc. Emtech plans to further develop the CBDC stack and its regulatory technology solutions. Emtech's previous investors include Noemis Ventures, Octerra Capital, and 500 Global. As of now, Emtech's total financing has reached $10 million.
Project name: Orbital
Official website: https://www.getorbital.com/
Attention: Medium
On August 3, the British blockchain payment platform Orbital completed a £5 million financing, led by Golden Record Ventures, with participation from New Form Capital, GSRV, Psalion and Luminous Futures. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, Orbital aims to combine fiat currency and cryptocurrency business accounts, enabling traditional global companies, especially those involved in emerging markets, to integrate stablecoins and other major cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies into existing payment flows.
Project name: Marquee
Official website: https://marquee.fi/
Attention: Medium
On August 3, the decentralized insurance platform Marquee completed a $1 million seed round of financing, with participation from Cryptogram Venture (CGV), Chain Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Bitrise Capital, ZC Capital, and Coinw Ventures. Marquee supports users to purchase "token price insurance" and "smart contract insurance", and allows users to become insurance underwriters to receive multiple rewards. Marquee will accelerate technology research and development and market promotion, and provide more breakthrough and innovative product solutions.
Project Name: Naval
Related information: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/inno/stories/fundings/2023/08/01/naval-web3-nft-startup-funding-blocktower-raise.html
Attention: Medium
On August 2, digital wallet startup Naval announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing, led by BlockTower. It is reported that Narval is building an organizational Web3 wallet usage platform that allows organizations to safely use complex digital assets in the Web3 field, such as NFT and other use cases.
Project name: VIP3
Official website: https://www.vip3.io/
Attention: Medium
On August 5, Web3 equity aggregation platform VIP3 announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was participated in by institutions such as IOBC Capital, Ankr and PAKA. The financing funds will be used for VIP3 product development and user expansion.
VIP3 is a Web3 membership rights aggregation platform that uses SBT (Soulbound Token) as an on-chain membership card. Users holding SBT can obtain a variety of rights and benefits from many leading Web3 projects on the VIP3 platform.
Project name: WEEX
Official channel: https://twitter.com/weexglobal_ch
Attention: Medium
On August 3, the crypto derivatives trading platform WEEX announced that it would complete a new round of financing with a valuation of US$100 million. South Korean digital marketing giant FSN plans to lead the investment. The funds raised will be mainly used to expand its global cryptocurrency market presence while providing users with secure trading guarantees.