AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #13

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🗓️ Week of: March 26 - April 1, 2023

Web3 Funding Snapshot

🚀 The Highlights

$337M raised across 27 announced rounds

Despite the regulatory blitz and residue of the banking crisis in the US, funding coming into Web3 remained resilient for yet another week. As usual, funding rounds remained concentrated on seed stage and infrastructure-related companies. However, we saw signs of promise with a number of Series A, B, and C rounds, perhaps indicating some companies are showing traction, or their investors are at least willing to double down. This was demonstrated in Ledger's announced Series C extension, which also happened to be the largest round of the week. Plus, there were other optimistic developments last week, including continued developments in infrastructure for Optimism (no pun intended), Citi's report on the trillion-dollar opportunity of tokenization, and the raise of the French crypto ecosystem.

While we're still in rough seas ahead for the remainder of 2023, at least Web3 closes the first quarter on a decent note with $3.25B+ in funding coming into the space. Not to mention, overall crypto markets are up >50% YTD across the board, with Bitcoin seeing a 70%+ return. Perhaps 2023 might not be as bad as we thought it would be 🙂

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Ledger, announced a €100M ($108M) Series C extension round, which was priced at the same terms as the original Series C at €1.3B ($1.41B at the current exchange rate). A long list of investors participated in the round, including new investors True Global Ventures, Digital Finance Group, and VaynerFund, as well as existing investors 0T, Cité Gestion Private Bank, Cap Horn, Morgan Creek, Cathay Innovation, Korelya Capital, and Molten Ventures.

Ledger is a French-based technology company that specializes in developing hardware wallets and other security solutions for digital assets. Their products offer a high level of security and are designed to safely store private keys on a certified secure chip, enabling users to manage and access their cryptocurrencies and other digital assets offline. Ledger has become one of the most popular and trusted names in the cryptocurrency space, with a range of products that cater to both individuals and institutional clients. They have reportedly sold over 6 million devices since 2014, of which 1 million were sold between June 2022 and February 2023.

Why this matters?👉 Good news! They were able to raise the extension round at a flat valuation, which is noteworthy given the climate for venture funding. I'm sure other Web3 unicorns are taking note. Granted, it probably helped that one-sixth of their all-time sales volume came within the last 9 months and I predict the volumes will continue to grow, given the greater emphasis on self-custody. I can't say this for other Web3 companies, but awesome news for category leaders like Ledger 🙌

😎 Noteworthy Company 

➡️ Conduit Conduit is a crypto-native infrastructure platform offering a range of developer tools, including a block explorer, autoscalable RPC nodes, metrics, and transaction tracers. Its first offering enables developers to deploy production-grade Optimistic (OP) rollups using the Optimism Collective's OP Stack. DeFi protocols, gaming companies, NFT platforms, and other on-chain providers can use Conduit to scale their applications, offering a better user experience and unlocking new use cases previously made impossible by network congestion. The company recently emerged from stealth mode and announced $7M in seed funding led by Paradigm, along with angel investors.

Why this matters?👉 Optimism is growing in popularity as one of the most widely used Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solutions. It's also the same protocol that Coinbase's Base is built on top of. As a result, infrastructure solutions designed for Optimism, like Conduit, could benefit as more developers look to launch their applications on top of this Layer 2.

👀Observations, Trends & Themes

➡️ Tokenization, a Trillion Dollar Opportunity

Security tokens and tokenization have come into the limelight recently. Citigroup published a research report last week forecasting that $4-5 trillion of financial assets could be tokenized in the next decade. The report highlighted that almost anything of value can be tokenized, and the tokenization of financial and real-world assets could be the "killer use-case" blockchain needs to drive a breakthrough. Citigroup is bullish on this trend. Earlier this month, BlackRock's Larry Fink also highlighted the promise of tokenization in his annual letter to shareholders.

Why this matters?👉A trillion-dollar TAM and potentially billion-dollar SAM is enough to get anyone excited! Tokenization has long been the most promising area for Web3, attracting both TradFi and dozens of startups over the past few years. However, the space has faced a bit of a “chicken and egg problem.” There are endless numbers of issuers, but limited reliable market infrastructure or liquidity leads to lackluster issuances. Crappy offerings and complex infrastructure cause investors and corresponding liquidity to stay shy of the space. Despite these challenges, the potential for tokenization is too great to ignore. And as infrastructure improves and issuances become more reliable, the space is poised to offer some significant opportunities for anyone building in the space in the years to come 📈

➡️ France, Crypto's Next New Hub? 🇫🇷

France's crypto industry is on the rise, as it is already home to notable Web3 unicorns such as Ledger and Sorare, along with emerging stars like Kaiko, Flowdesk, and crypto OG Coinhouse. Furthermore, several global Web3 companies, including Chainlink, Binance, and most recently Circle, have established physical presences in the country. Many of France's largest corporates and brands, such as LVMH, Givenchy, Société Générale, and AXA, are actively working with blockchain in the fashion and TradFi sectors.

Why this matters?👉 While the US crypto industry faces regulatory turmoil, companies may start looking overseas, including emerging hubs such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and potentially France. France has put in place a defined regulatory and licensing framework around crypto, making it one of the first EU nations to do so. Additionally, the country has offered tax incentives to crypto companies, along with investment from its public investment entity, Bpifrance. France also has a highly skilled technology workforce and provides free access to the EU.

➡️ DEXs on the Raise

In addition to our coverage on wallet self-custody solutions, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have also been a hot area for investment so far in 2023. Over $100M+ has gone into 27 early-stage companies building DEXs across spot and derivative markets. This probably comes as no shock as the space has been primed for opportunity, given the fallout of centralized exchange FTX and recent troubles faced by Binance. These issues have caused more users to gravitate towards decentralized, non-custodial trading venues.

Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds 

Note: EigenLayer was previously reported in Roundup #6. However, on March 28th the round was officially announced. Its corresponding entry date had been moved in our data to reflect the announcement date. 

Want access to our complete dataset or propose an update? Contact: [email protected] 

All Rounds

JDI Global - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Manufacturer of digital asset mining machines and internet of things (IoT) devices geared to Web3: https://twitter.com/Global_JDI

Cega - Seed+ ($5M) | DeFi application that enables users to create exotic derivative contracts as well as staking products: https://www.cega.fi/

D-Ecosystem - Private Sale ($6M) | Decentralized, open-source blockchain ecosystem centered around a public network as well as its own payments system, decentralized exchange, wallet, and NFT marketplace: https://d-ecosystem.io/

Orderly Network - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol and modular DeFi ecosystem built on top of the NEAR blockchain network: https://orderly.network/

Conduit - Seed ($7M) | Infrastructure platform that enables developers to deploy production grade Optimistic (OP) rollups using Optimism Collective's OP Stack: https://conduit.xyz/

EigenLayer - Series A ($50M) | Developer of restaking protocol built on Ethereum that extends security of the blockchain to additional application on the network such as rollups, bridges, and oracles: https://www.eigenlayer.xyz/

SO-COL - Private Sale ($1.5M) + ($3M) | Web3 social platform made for creators, brands and communities: https://www.socol.io/

FiNANCiE - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Community token issuance and crowdfunding platform focused on sports teams and entertainment projects in Japan and overseas: https://financie.jp/

Turbos Finance - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Non-custodial hyper-efficient decentralized exchange powered by the Sui blockchain that offers automated market making (AMM) and perpetual trading: https://turbos.finance/

Econia Labs - Seed ($6.5M) | High-performance on-chain order book and decentralized exchange for the Aptos blockchain: https://www.econialabs.com/

Vitraya - Series A ($5M) | Tech platform that enables automated, real-time payouts, and claims settlement between healthcare providers and insurers smart contracts and blockchain architecture: https://www.vitrayatech.com/

True I/O (fka. Total Network Services) - Series A ($9M) | Developer of ecosystem of apps focused on tokenization and creator of Universal Communication Identifier (UCID), a blockchain-enabled, unique ID digitally stamped onto anything connected to a wireless network: https://www.trueio.io/

Muverse - Seed ($6M) | Platform and marketplace for music NFTs: https://www.muverse.info/home

Fetch.ai - Private Sale ($40M) | Open, permissionless, decentralized machine learning network that enables users to deploy and connect smart agents to automate Web3 systems: https://fetch.ai/

Junggl Media - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Enables media companies to streamline their financial and data management processes: https://junggl.com/

apM Coin - Private Sale ($5M) | Customer reward platform for wholesale fashion markets in collaboration with apM Group, South Korea's largest B2B clothing wholesaler: https://apm-coin.com/

Polytrade - Seed ($3.8M) | DeFi lending protocol and underwriting engine focused on trade finance: https://polytrade.finance/

Agreena - Series B ($46M) | Regenerative agriculture platform that uses sustainable blockchain technology to enhance the traceability and transparency of carbon credits: https://agreena.com/

Love Hate Inu - Public Sale ($2.6M) | Meme token that offers real utility in a voting system based on blockchain technology: https://lovehateinu.com/en

Collateral Network - Public Sale ($1M) | Peer-to-peer collateralized lending platform for fractionalized NFTs and other real-world assets: https://collateralnetwork.io/

Ledger - Series C+ ($108M) | Digital assets self-custodial platform offering hardware and cold wallets: https://www.ledger.com/

Coadjute - Seed ($5M) | Property technology platform that connects parties involved in property transactions using blockchain: https://coadjute.com/

TradeWindow - Strategic ($7M) | International trade and supply chain digitalization platform that leverages blockchain technology: https://tradewindow.io/

LI.FI - Series A ($17.5M) | Cross-chain bridge aggregation protocol that supports any-2-any swaps via decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregators: https://li.fi/

PoseiSwap - Strategic ($1.5M) | Decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Nautilus blockchain network: https://www.poseiswap.xyz/

Ensemble - Seed ($1M) | NFT platform where artists can sell Artifacts from their creative process and tell the stories behind them: https://www.ensemble.art/

New Funds

Hydra Ventures - Hydra Ventures DAO ($10M)

Cool Resources

Crypto Fund Research is a resource for market intelligence and data on crypto hedge funds and VC firms. They maintain a database on over 800+ funds and also prepare quarterly reports on the state of crypto funds. Their reports are great for tracking overall capital flows and cumulative AUM across all types of crypto funds. 

About

AWeb3VC is a source for venture funding news, emerging startups and trends across Web3. I've been closely following cryptocurrencies and digital assets since 2013 and started working in space since 2018. Now I'm on a mission to build the most extensive venture ecosystem for BUIDLERS in Web3, starting first by tracking those BUIDLERS.