AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #47

🗓️ Week of: Nov 19-25, 2023

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(See "Funding Rounds" section for the complete list of deals)

$607M+ was raised across 21 funding rounds in Web3. Another impressive week for funding, primarily driven by three public market deals for crypto mining companies. This coincides with Bitcoin miners revenues recently surpassing $44M in block rewards and transaction fees, the highest level so far in 2023 and levels not seen since April 2022. The additional capital is likely helping these miners position themselves ahead of the Bitcoin halving event expected sometime in 2024. Some of the largest funding deals so far in 2023 have all been with miners, seeing billions of capital flow into these companies.

Also notable this week was Binance’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), with founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stepping down. While mainstream media depicts this as a catastrophic event for the industry, industry insiders have anticipated this development for some time, and it is by far the least bad outcome that could have occurred. Ultimately, the crypto industry is growing up, with the wrongs of yesterday being corrected, only strengthening the industry further.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Phoenix Group (PHX) closed its initial public offering (IPO) on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), raising a total of over 1.36 billion dirhams or ~$370M. The public offering was reported to have been oversubscribed. According to the company’s unaudited financial data, the company realized a $144M net profit at a two-year CAGR of 108%.

The Phoenix Group started as a pure-play digital asset mining company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has since expanded into a vertically integrated digital asset company with a global footprint. Its primary businesses consist of mining and hosting services. It has built the Middle East’s largest 240 MW mining facility in Abu Dhabi and manages over 725 MW capacity across various geographies including North America, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The company also holds exclusive distribution rights across the Middle East and Africa for leading cryptocurrency hardware brands and accessories, including mining equipment and hardware wallets (e.g., WhatsMiner, CoolWallets, Tangem, and Trezor).

Phoenix Group, through its subsidiaries, also holds investments across the digital asset ecosystem. The company holds a stake in M2, an Abu Dhabi based, regulated full-service cryptocurrency exchange and investment platform, as well as in two other global mining projects, Citadel and Bitzero.

Why this matters?👉While not the NYSE or NASDAQ, Phoenix Group’s IPO on the ADX demonstrates a reemerging appetite for public crypto stocks. The deal also highlights the growing potential for crypto in the Middle East should the ADX become a significant avenue to the public markets. Also, it helps the company’s mining operations put up stellar gross margins at a time when miners' revenues are starting to come back.

😎 Noteworthy Company(s)

➡️ Privy is a toolkit for progressive authentication flows in Web3 applications. It offers a simple library of authentication flows, wallet connectors, and self-custodial embedded wallets, which can be incorporated into any application with just a few lines of code. Using Privy allows developers to bring Web2-caliber UX, like multi-factor authentication (MFA) via email and social, to Web3 products, helping to boost user adoption. The platform also enables robust user management tools for onboarding configurability, third-party integrations, and user analytics. Moreover, Privy prioritizes security by working with security experts to review and threat model all systems and infrastructure on an ongoing basis, including performing cryptography audits, penetration tests, and SOC 2 Type II attestations.

Privy’s infrastructure currently processes millions of transactions every month, with over 10 billion RPC requests since September 2023. Its platform has onboarded more than one million users to onchain products and is used by notable Web3 applications including Friend.tech, Blackbird, Courtyard, and many others.

The company was founded in 2022 by Asta Li and Henri Stern. Recently the company announced $18M in Series A funding led by Paradigm with participation from existing Privy investors Sequoia Capital, Blue Yard and Archetype along with other prominent angel investors.

Why this matters?👉 We’ve covered Privy before, but it’s a solution that keeps popping up. Its recent Series A funding round is likely a testament to the company's traction and growth. The company charges developers a monthly tiered subscription fee based on their monthly active users (MAU). Given its role in enhancing Web3 UX, Privy could become essential infrastructure, akin to the growing use of Magic for user authentication and hosted wallets. Not to mention, both Magic and Privy’s growth could also serve as a leading indicator of broader user adoption within Web3.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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

All Rounds

Friend3 - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized social network and communities monetization platform: https://opbnb.friend3.group/

Saga - Seed+ ($5M) | Layer 1 blockchain protocol that allows developers to automatically deploy interoperable application-specific blockchains: https://www.saga.xyz/

Panoptic - Seed+ ($7M) | Perpetual, oracle-free options protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain: https://panoptic.xyz/

BP-FLAC (aka. Blockchain Powered Federated Learning and AI Certification) - Seed ($10M) | Decentralized network for computational resources used to facilitate the training of generative AI models: https://www.wod.ai/

Fence - Seed ($2M) x| SaaS platform designed to streamline the operations of capital providers and asset originators leveraging blockchain technology: https://www.fence.finance/

De.fi - Public Sale ($5M) | DeFi portfolio tracker and crypto wallet antivirus app: https://de.fi/

Core Scientific - Equity Rights Offering ($55M) | One of the largest blockchain computing data center providers and miners of digital assets in North America, using its facilities and intellectual property portfolio for co-located and self-mining of digital asset: https://corescientific.com/

Blast - Private Sale ($20M) | Layer 2 blockchain network with native yield for ETH and stablecoins: https://blast.io/en

Blur - Private Sale ($40M) | NFT marketplace for pro traders: https://blur.io/

Poglin - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Intellectual property set of unique creatures across a wide array of mediums, encompassing video games, anime, comics, and tangible merchandise: https://twitter.com/Poglin_Official

Magic ID - Seed ($380K) | Digital identity assistant linking businesses and individuals using zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology: https://magic-id.com/

Citadel - Public Sale ($1.6M) | Base-native hyperfunctional DEX and Launchpad: https://www.citadelswap.xyz/

Zeal - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Web3 wallet with embedded safety checks: https://www.zeal.app/

Privy - Series A ($18M) | Toolkit for progressive authentication flows and embedded wallets for Web3 applications: https://www.privy.io/

Phoenix Group - IPO ($370M) | Manager of global cryptocurrency mining facilities and datacenters alongside investments in Web3 technologies and digital asset exchanges: https://phoenixgroupuae.com/

IntentX - Seed ($2.5M) | OTC derivatives exchange offering perpetual futures trading: https://intentx.io/

Expanso - Seed ($7.5M) | Decentralized open compute platform and developer of open-source software Bacalhau: https://www.expanso.io/

Vistara - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Hardware availability layer for the modular web providing access to decentralized hardware: https://app.vistara.dev/admin/deployments

Matr1x - Series A+ ($10M) | Web3 gaming company and developer of first person shooter game and metaverse: https://www.matr1x.io/

iPeakoin - Series A ($10M) | Digital bank providing services across traditional finance and crypto: https://www.ipeakoin.com/

Bitfarms - Private Placement ($44M) | Global vertically integrated Bitcoin mining operation: https://bitfarms.com/

New Funds

No new funds announced this week.

🙌 Cool Resources

Blockchain.com charts, one of the most reliable sources for data on the bitcoin blockchain.

🐕 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 the 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.