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- AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #45
🗓️ Week of: Nov 5-11, 2023
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(See "Funding Rounds" section for the complete list of deals)
$110M+ was raised across 26 funding rounds in Web3. Despite a modest total capital raised, this week has seen an increasing number of companies and projects receive funding (>20), signaling that deal flow could be picking up. This uptick is likely influenced by the crypto markets reaching their 52-week highs, with altcoins and other Web3 sectors benefiting beyond Bitcoin.
While the increasingly positive sentiment in the markets largely hinges on the approval of spot ETFs - crypto is making a comeback in the mainstream and continues to see the narrative of institutional adoption gaining momentum. Unsurprisingly, we have also observed more financial services (i.e., CeFi) and DeFi companies and projects receiving funding over the past month and year. Adding to this, there are rumors that Circle is planning an IPO in 2024. Should the firm proceed with these plans, Web3 ventures could benefit from another industry exit and a new set of public company multiples for investors to consider.
🏆 Largest Funding Round
➡️ Ritual recently announced $25M in Series A funding round led by Archetype. Other investors include Accomplice, Robot Ventures, dao5, Accel, Dialectic, Anagram, Avra, and Hypersphere, along with various angel investors such as Balaji Srinivasan.
Ritual is an open, modular, sovereign execution layer for artificial intelligence (AI). It unites a distributed network of nodes, providing access to computational resources. This setup allows model creators to host their models on these nodes in a decentralized environment. The network also features robust cryptographic infrastructure, ensuring computational integrity and privacy for users. Users can access any model on this network via a common API, benefiting from the network's cryptographic safeguards.
The first offering from Ritual, Infernet, is a lightweight library that brings computation to the blockchain. It enables smart contract developers to request off-chain computation from a distributed network of nodes, with the results delivered on-chain. Infernet represents the initial building block in a suite of protocols, marking a significant step in developing Ritual’s network of model and compute providers.
Why this matters?👉The rising cost of compute and limited access to associated hardware (e.g., GPUs) are creating a modern-day arms race, prompting AI developers to seek alternative resources for computation. AI holds promise for Web3 developers, but the current reliance on centralized APIs poses challenges for integrating them into decentralized applications. Ritual aims to address these challenges by developing a distributed network that hosts and runs AI models, enabling their use on-chain. In some ways, Ritual and other emerging decentralized AI execution layers are becoming akin to oracles (like Chainlink for data), creating a bridge between off-chain and on-chain resources and fundamental infrastructure to Web3.
😎 Noteworthy Company
➡️ Lightspeed Faction is a blockchain-native venture capital firm. This firm focuses on early-stage startups within the blockchain ecosystem, adopting a flexible approach to industry verticals. Typically, it invests in Seed or Series A stage companies and projects, with an average check size ranging from $5 to $10 million. Beyond providing capital, Lightspeed Faction offers a range of resources to blockchain entrepreneurs, covering topics from tokenomics to business scaling strategies.
The firm is a joint venture with Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the top-tier venture firms in Silicon Valley. While Lightspeed Faction collaborates with Lightspeed Venture Partners on blockchain-related matters and shares platform business scaling resources, it operates independently. It has its own dedicated limited partner (LP) base and maintains full investment discretion. The firm, is led by co-founders Samuel Harrison and Banafsheh Fathieh, who have previously served as investors at other venture firms including Blockchain.com.
The firm recently announced its inaugural $285 million venture fund. This fund was launched in July 2022, with its initial close then and its final close in July of this year. Already, approximately 20% of the fund has been allocated to various blockchain ventures, including Crossmint, Lens, Matter Labs, Narya.ai, and Skip.money. The first fund aims to fully deploy within three years, investing in both equity and tokens.
Why this matters?👉Despite 2023 being a challenging year, there have been over $3 billion in capital commitments for new funds launched, with Fraction contributing to this list. It's also interesting to see a prominent venture capital firm like Lightspeed take a general partner (GP) stake while allowing the fund to operate independently. We are likely to see other larger venture firms increasingly lean on smaller, specialized firms with domain expertise in Web3. This trend could become more pronounced as tier-1 VCs cautiously re-enter the crypto space, particularly since many prominent names got burned by FTX.
💸 Funding Rounds
Top 15 Rounds
Want access to our complete dataset or propose an update? Contact: [email protected]
All Rounds
Growncoms - Seed ($3.5M) | B2B marketplace for agri-commodity exports and spices leveraging blockchain technology: https://www.growcoms.com/
Llama - Seed ($6M) | Access control and governance platform for smart contracts enabling protocols to securely take actions using onchain policies and custom execution strategies: https://llama.xyz/
21bitcoin (aka. FIOR Digital) - Seed ($2.2M) | All-in-one bitcoin-native financial experience: https://21bitcoin.app/
Due - Seed ($3.3M) | Global payments service enabled by stablecoins and blockchain technology: https://www.opendue.com/
Pimlico - Seed ($4.2M) | Infrastructure platform for building for ERC-4337 smart accounts and wallets: https://www.pimlico.io/
Socket - Seed ($3M) | Self-custodial personal investment app: https://www.sock.app/
Chintai - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | One-stop capital markets solution for digital asset issuance, secondary trading, automated compliance, cap table management, reporting, and custody: https://chintai.io/
StablIR - Seed ($3.5M) | Developer of euro-backed stablecoin, EURR: https://www.stablr.com/
QuickNode - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Blockchain development platform and infrastructure provider of node hosting solutions: https://www.quicknode.com/
Kresko - Seed+ ($1.8M) | Non-custodial, capital-efficient synthetic asset protocol: https://www.kresko.fi/
Agrotoken - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Global tokenization infrastructure for agrocommodities: https://agrotoken.com/
The Citadel (aka. Yee-haw Monster Trucks) - Seed ($3.3M) | Space themed persistent world hosted entirely on the Ethereum blockchain: https://citadel.game/
Cool Cats - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Global character brand built around its beloved lead character “Blue Cat”, created by artist Colin Egan in 2013: https://coolcats.com/
Galactic Holdings - Series A ($6.3M) | All-in-one ecosystem for cryptocurrency transactions, which includes a crypto wallet (TruBit Wallet), a crypto exchange (TruBit Pro), and Mexican Pesos pegged stablecoin (MMXN): https://galactic.holdings/
Authentik - Seed ($4M) | Platform that enables users to easily browse, purchase, and verify the authenticity of NFTs: https://authentickator.com/
Ritual - Series A ($25M) | AI coprocessor and execution layer built for smart contracts: https://ritual.net/
Stackr Labs - Seed ($4M) | Modular framework for building application specific rollups using general-purpose programming languages: https://www.stackrlabs.xyz/
Moflix Group - Seed ($3.1M) | Developer of digital solutions for the telecommunications industry: https://www.moflixgroup.com/
Definitive - Seed ($4.1M) | Non-custodial platform for advanced DeFi yield and on-chain trade execution: https://www.definitive.fi/
Pendle Finance - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Yield trading protocols that allows users to tokenize and trade future yields from other DeFi protocols: https://www.pendle.finance/
Metavesco - Private Placement ($650K) | Web3 focused enterprise focused on being a liquidity provider, staking, mining, and investing in NFTs as well as metaverse projects: https://metavesco.com/
BondbloX - Series B ($6M) | Fractional bond investment platform leveraging blockchain technology: https://bondblox.com/
Ingonyama - Seed ($20M) | Semiconductor company, focusing on Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) hardware acceleration: https://www.ingonyama.com/
HomeDAO - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Provides communal housing and workspaces for ambitious Web3 developers and entrepreneurs: https://home-dao.com/
Mogul Club - Seed ($3.6M) | Fractional real estate investment platform leveraging blockchain technology: https://www.mogul.club/
Block Scholes - Series A ($3.3M) | Institutional-grade analytics, data and research platform for digital asset markets: https://www.blockscholes.com/
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🐕 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.5