Weekly Financing Report | 19 Public Financing Events; Web3 Wallet Platform Galaxy Finance Completes $30 Million B Round Financing with Participation from Hong Kong Investment Fund BlackPine
Weekly Financing Report | Galaxy Finance's Web3 Wallet Platform completes $30M B round financing with participation from Hong Kong's BlackPine, among 19 public financing events.
Highlights of this issue
According to BlockingNews’ incomplete statistics, there were 19 blockchain financing events worldwide from June 19 to June 25, with a total funding scale of approximately US$150 million, which increased compared to the previous week, as follows:
- DeFi announced 5 investment and financing events, among which DeFi infrastructure provider Maverick Protocol raised US$9 million in strategic round financing, led by Founders Fund;
- Chain games announced 2 investment and financing events, among which Animoca Brands subsidiary Anichess completed a seed round financing of US$1.5 million, with GameFi Ventures participating;
- NFT and Metaverse fields announced 2 financing events, among which DREST, a fashion Metaverse game company, announced the completion of a financing of 15 million pounds, and the investment information has not been disclosed;
- Infrastructure and tools fields announced 6 financing events, among which smart contract infrastructure company Neutron completed a financing of US$10 million, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund;
- Other Web3/crypto-related projects announced 1 financing event, and renewable energy Bitcoin mining start-up Arkon Energy raised US$26 million from Sandton Capital Partners;
- Decentralized finance field announced 3 financing events, among which the Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Metatime has completed a financing of US$25 million so far, with investors from Turkey, Denmark, and Germany.
DeFi
DeFi protocol Maverick raised US$9 million, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund
DeFi infrastructure provider Maverick Protocol raised US$9 million in strategic round financing. This round of financing was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and participants included Blockingntera Capital, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures and Apollo Crypto. Maverick also launched a liquidity incentive tool ‘Boosted Positions (BP)’. In March 2023, Maverick Protocol launched its DEX product on the Ethereum mainnet, which provides liquidity providers (LPs) with tools to achieve higher capital efficiency with its pioneering dynamic distribution AMM technology. At the same time, Maverick has integrated with leading LST (Liquid Staking Token) projects such as Lido, Frax, Liquity, cbETH, Rocket Pool, and Swell.
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Northstake, institution-oriented cryptocurrency staking platform, raises around $3 million in funding
Copenhagen-based Northstake, a cryptocurrency staking platform for institutions, has raised €2.8 million (around $3 million) in funding, with participation from PreSeed Ventures, Morph Capital, The Aventures Fund, Funfair Ventures, and Delta Blockchain Fund. The company currently holds over $80 million in crypto assets in 2022.
Community-driven liquidity investment market Earn Network completes $2.7 million seed funding round
Community-driven liquidity investment market Earn Network has announced the completion of a $2.7 million seed funding round, led by Shima Capital, with participation from DFG, Jsquare, LD Capital, Cronos Labs, GTS Ventures, Bixin Ventures, ViaBTC Capital, Mars DAO, and Mirana Ventures. Established in Q2 2022, Earn Network offers a “no-code” solution, which allows anyone to create custom financial products, such as staking or lending pools, using audited templates.
DEX platform Vertex Protocol secures strategic investment from Wintermute Ventures
Decentralized exchange (DEX) platform Vertex Protocol, based on Arbitrum, has announced a strategic investment from Wintermute Ventures, with the specific amount undisclosed. The platform claimed it registered more than $1 billion in total trading volume for spot and perpetual futures in under two months.
DeFi privacy infrastructure Portal Gate raises $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Apollo Crypto
DeFi privacy infrastructure provider Portal Gate has raised $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Apollo Crypto, with participation from UpsideDAO, Greythorn Asset Management, Comma3 Ventures, Gandel Invest, Rebase D. Ventures, Fork Ventures, and the founder of Ren Protocol. Portal Gate will accelerate the rollout of its privacy pool on the mainnet, with plans to launch in Q3.
Blockchain Gaming
Animoca Brands’ Anichess raises $1.5 million in funding for blockchain chess game
Anichess, a subsidiary of blockchain gaming firm Animoca Brands, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding with participation from GameFi Ventures, Coin Operated Group, Koda Capital, Bing Ventures, 708 Capital, and Asymmetry Capital. The funding will be used to expand the team and develop the game. Anichess is a community-driven, free, decentralized chess game developed in partnership with Play Magnus Group, which is owned by Animoca Brands and Chess.com, and plans to release an alpha version in Q1 2024.
Blockchain game Cat Blockingradise raises nearly $1 million in seed funding, with participation from Mask Network
Cat Blockingradise, a TON-based chain game, completed seed round financing with an estimated value of $15 million and raised nearly $1 million in this round of financing. Institutions such as Mask Network and Moon Capital participated. The company will use this fund to improve existing on-chain technology, hire more skilled developers, and reach more customers. It is reported that Cat Blockingradise is a digital cat pet breeding game developed by game developer Pluto Games.
NFT & Metaverse
Fashion metaverse game company DREST completes £15 million financing
Fashion metaverse game company DREST announced the completion of £15 million (approximately $19 million) financing, and the investor information has not been disclosed. DREST integrates fashion luxury brands with metaverse technology. Players can design brand digital clothing on the metaverse avatar and participate in the game. The user-generated content platform can combine gamification and brand marketing, allowing brand merchants to reach a highly engaged audience. Currently, DREST’s fashion brand partners include Breitling, Cartier, Fendi, Gucci, Prada, and Valentino. At this stage, DREST is exploring the development of games in the Web3 and lifestyle fields, and is expected to enter the research and development stage in the next 18 months.
Open Foodie completes seed round financing of $500,000, with participation from HashGlobal
NFT project Open Foodie announced the completion of $500,000 seed round financing, with participation from HashGlobal, StarWin, Bitrise Capital, and Teraland. Open Foodie is a creative Web3 cartoon food manufacturing laboratory, aiming to combine Web2 and Web3 technologies to promote the future development of the food industry.
Infrastructure & Tools
Web3 wallet platform Galaxy Finance completes $30 million Series B financing, with participation from Singapore QCP Capital
Web3 wallet platform Galaxy Finance announced the completion of $30 million Series B financing, with participation from Hong Kong investment fund BlackPine, Singapore crypto investment institution QCP Capital, and US blockchain investment fund Tally Capital. The Web3 wallet built by Galaxy Finance can be used to store digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The company previously raised $8 million in Series A financing, and the new funds will improve its products and expand its influence in the Southeast Asian market.
Smart contract infrastructure company Neutron raises $10 million in financing, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund
Neutron, an infrastructure company for smart contracts, has completed a $10 million funding round led by Binance Labs and CoinFund, with participation from Delphi Ventures, LongHash Ventures, Semantic Ventures, and Nomad Capital, among others. Neutron launched its mainnet in May and is a cross-chain smart contract platform that uses the interchain security feature Replicated Security (RS) of the Cosmos ecosystem. Neutron can interoperate across 51 blockchains within the Cosmos network, which are connected through inter-blockchain communication (IBC).
A.I.-driven crypto search engine Kaito completes $5.5m Series A funding round led by Superscrypt and Spartan Block
A.I.-driven crypto search engine Kaito has announced that it has completed a $5.5m Series A funding round led by Superscrypt and Spartan Block, early-stage blockchain-focused venture capital firms under Temasek. Prior to this, Kaito had raised $5.3m in seed funding led by Dragonfly, with participation from Sequoia China and Jane Street in February 2023. The total amount raised now exceeds $10m. The funds will be used to develop the industry’s first crypto search engine based on the LLM (large language model), which will incorporate Discord and Telegram messages, as well as data on the blockchain.
Web3 company Vantient raises $3.45m in funding, with participation from Cercano Management
Singapore-registered Web3 customer relationship management (CRM) solution company Vantient has raised $3.45m in funding, according to DealStreetAsia. Participating investors include Cercano Management (formerly Vulcan Capital), Saison Capital, and AC Ventures. Vantient provides on-chain and off-chain customer data aggregation and analysis services primarily to enterprises and Web3 projects to help companies acquire, engage, and retain users.
Shared sorter solution Radius raises $1.7m in funding, led by Hashed
Shared sorter solution Radius has raised $1.7m in pre-seed funding round led by Hashed, with participation from Superscrypt, Lambdaclass, and Crypto.com. Radius prevents MEV damage to users by using a shared sorter that uses practical verifiable delay encryption (PVDE). Radius recently announced a partnership with Saga, i.e. Rollup-as-a-Service, and has joined the Celestia ecosystem.
Accenture Ventures invests in Web3 infrastructure provider Blockingrfin
Accenture has announced that it has made a strategic investment in Web3 infrastructure provider Blockingrfin through Accenture Ventures, with specific investment terms not disclosed. Blockingrfin was established in 2019 and is an infrastructure provider that offers digital asset custody, trading, tokenisation, and management tools to Latin American financial institutions. It is currently developing a permissioned blockchain technology, Blockingrchain, aimed at enabling regulated entities to participate in DeFi and asset tokenisation. In January 2023, Blockingrfin raised $15m in seed funding, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Alexia Ventures, among others.
Other
Australian Bitcoin mining company Arkon Energy completes $26 million new round of financing
Cryptocurrency mining startup Arkon Energy, which uses renewable energy, is expanding its business in the United States by acquiring a data center site in Hannibal, Ohio. The company has also raised $26 million in a new round of funding from Sandton Capital Blockingrtners. The company operates data centers that host Bitcoin mining equipment, with the Ohio data center designed to have a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). It is expected that the company’s computing power will increase to 3.3 EH/s by the end of 2023.
Centralized Finance
Crypto exchange Metatime raises $25 million in funding, plans to launch ecosystem token MTC
Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Metatime has raised $25 million in funding from investors in Turkey, Denmark, and Germany. The company also plans to launch its ecosystem token, Metatime Coin (MTC), on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges starting in June. Metatime is a company that combines blockchain, product development, and cryptocurrencies, with over 70 products developed and its own blockchain network, MetaChain. Earlier in March, Metatime completed a $11 million seed round of financing, with participation from Turkish investment company Yildiz Tekno GSYO and several unnamed angel investors.
Singaporean crypto payment provider dtcBlockingy raises $16.5 million in funding
Singaporean crypto payment provider dtcBlockingy (formerly Digital Treasures Center) has completed a $16.5 million pre-series A round of financing, led by Pontiac Land Chairman Kwee Liong Tek, with participation from former Carlyle Group Managing Director and Partner David Tung, Burgess Asia Chairman Jean-Marc Poullet, and former KPMG Singapore and Asia-Pacific Chairman Tham Sai Choy. dtcBlockingy was founded in 2019 and provides services such as account issuance, domestic transfer, cross-border transfer, merchant acquiring, e-currency issuance, and digital payment tokens. It provides payment processing for users who trade across fiat and digital currencies.
Digital asset platform EDX Markets completes new round of financing, with participation from DV Crypto and GSR Markets
EDX Markets, a digital asset trading platform supported by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments, and Charles Schwab, has officially announced the launch of its trading services and completed a new round of financing. Investors include Miami International Holdings, DV Crypto, GTS, GSR Markets LTD, and HRT Technology. These companies have joined the founding investor alliance, including Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets SM, Blockingradigm, Sequoia Capital, and Virtu Financial. The new funds will support EDX in continuing to develop its trading platform and consolidate its market-leading position. EDX will launch EDX Clearing later this year to settle trades matched on EDX Markets.
Venture Capital
Illuminate Financial, the UK-based venture capital firm, raised $235 million for its third fund
Illuminate Financial, the London-based paper-oriented UK venture capital firm, raised $235 million for its third fund, with investors including Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Euroclear. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citi, Barclays Plc, and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. also invested in the new fund. Illuminate was founded nine years ago by Mark Beeston, a former TP ICAP Group Plc and Deutsche Bank AG executive, and has operations in New York and Singapore. It has supported 35 companies, including digital asset market infrastructure companies Copper, Blockdaemon, Baton Systems, and institutional pledging platform Kiln.
