AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #62

🗓️ Week of: Mar 2-9, 2024

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

$332M+ was raised across 47 funding rounds in Web3. Deal flow and total capital raised continue to remain strong for another week with 2024 already seeing 30+ announced deals per week. This shouldn't come as a surprise as the crypto markets continue their bull run, with investors showing renewed interest across the board. According to research by Nickel Digital, nearly three out of four institutional investors plan to increase their existing investments in crypto and are positive about the sector in both the short and long term. There is a good likelihood that the capital flow will also continue to spill over into the Web3 venture market as well.

Keeping an eye on emerging trends and themes, Layer 2 solutions across both Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to attract capital, especially at a time when EIP-4844 is getting ready for implementation. More and more DeFi projects emerge as trading volumes reach record highs and new venues for leverage emerge. Additionally, the narrative of AI and blockchain coming to fruition is evidenced by startups working to bridge the technologies emerging each week and attracting substantial capital to do so.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Optimism, through the Optimism Foundation, announced a private token sale of approximately 19.5M OP tokens, valued at about $89M. The identity of the purchaser was not disclosed. However, the sold tokens were subject to a two-year lockup, with the buyer having the ability to delegate the tokens to unaffiliated third parties for governance participation. The tokens originate from the Unallocated portion of the OP Token treasury, and are part of the Foundation’s original working budget of 30% of the initial OP token supply.

Optimism is an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution employing Optimistic Rollup technology. It enables faster and cheaper transactions by bundling multiple transactions into a single transaction on the Ethereum mainnet, leveraging Ethereum's security while mitigating its network congestion and high fees. Additionally, the OP Mainnet is designed to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling developers to deploy existing smart contracts with minimal adjustments.

Furthermore, Optimism offers the OP Stack, a standardized, shared, and open-source development stack that enables developers to create a production-ready Layer 2 blockchain akin to the OP Mainnet. It also introduces Superchain, a network of OP Stack chains that share a bridging protocol, governance system, and more.

Why this matters?👉 With Ethereum’s upcoming Dencun update and the implementation of EIP-4844, Layer 2 solutions like Optimism are likely to see a reduction in costs for posting data to the Ethereum base layer. If transactions become more efficient, this could further improve the economics of many Layer 2 networks and also bolster transaction volumes. Additionally, the timing and size of the private token sale is notable. With crypto markets enjoying a bull market, more project treasuries are likely to take advantage of the favorable market conditions to cushion their runway and development for the years to come.

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ IO Research is the developer of io.net, a decentralized computing network tailored for AI workloads and applications. The platform facilitates access to a coordinated network of graphic processing units (GPUs) to empower training and inference processes that surpass the capabilities of single devices. It addresses the critical shortage of GPUs in the public cloud, which often results in limited availability, poor hardware choice, and prohibitively high costs.

At the core of io.net's solution is the aggregation of GPUs from underutilized sources, including independent data centers, crypto miners, and projects like Filecoin and Render, through a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) built on the Solana blockchain. The platform utilizes advanced networking, a bespoke orchestration layer, and an open-source distributed computing framework to manage a wide array of tasks. It orchestrates, schedules, and scales workloads across a network of GPUs with minimal adjustments. This approach not only makes massive computing power accessible and customizable for engineers but also ensures cost efficiency and ease of implementation.

The company was founded by Ahmad Shadid, who conceived the idea of the platform at a Solana Hackathon in February 2023. Recently, the company raised $30M in a Series A funding round led by Hack VC, with participation from notable investors such as Multicoin Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Solana Ventures, and other prominent VCs, as well as a syndicate of angel investors that included Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana. The platform also plans to introduce a token to provide incentives to lower costs and streamline the GPU supply on the network.

Why this matters?👉 io.net stands at the forefront of AI’s trillion-dollar future by offering a novel solution to bridge the gap between the soaring demand for AI compute resources and the global shortage of GPUs. By leveraging token incentives within its DePIN network of distributed GPUs, it not only sources critical computing resources but also structurally lowers costs and provides a developer-friendly platform. This approach positions io.net as a viable competitor to today’s incumbent public cloud providers. Furthermore, io.net exemplifies the growing nexus between Web3 and AI.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

ChronoForge (aka. RIFT Foundation) - Strategic ($3.0M) | Free to play multiplayer action RPG developed by Minted Loot Studios: https://chronoforge.gg/

BitSmiley - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized stablecoin and lending infrastructure built on Bitcoin: https://twitter.com/bitsmiley_labs

MirrorL2 - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized Proof-of-Stake Layer 2 network built on Bitcoin and EVM compatible: https://mirrorl2.com/

Pikamoon - Public Sale ($5.8M) | Play-to-Earn NFT card game and metaverse: https://www.pikamoon.io/

Privasea - Seed ($5.0M) | Decentralized AI network of distributed computing resources enabling Fully Homomorphic Encryption Machine Learning (FHEML): https://www.privasea.ai/

Stack - Seed ($3.0M) | Platform for creating and managing points systems onchain: https://www.stack.so/

Hypercomic - Series A ($8.3M) | Korea webtoon and drama production and IP business enabled by Web3: https://hypercomic.io/

Bigg Digital Assets - Private Placement ($3.7M) | Owns, operates, and invests in digital asset businesses including Netcoins, Blockchain Intelligence Group, and TerraZero: https://biggdigitalassets.com/

Onramp - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Fiat-to-crypto payment gateway: https://onramp.money/

Baanx - Series A ($20.0M) | Banking-as-a-Service platform providing financial services to digital asset businesses and fintechs: https://baanx.com/

Taproot Labs - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Developer of Bitcoin Layer 2 network and multi-chain asset trading platform based on the Lightning Network Taproot Assets Protocol: https://twitter.com/TaprootLabs

TokenFi - Private Sale ($10.0M) | No-code token creation platform enabling tokenized Real World Assets (RWA): https://tokenfi.com/

Utila - Seed ($11.5M) | Non-custodial, chain-agnostic, enterprise-grade wallet platform powered by multiparty computation (MPC) technology: https://utila.io/

Sahara - Seed ($6.0M) | Decentralized AI network of personal and business Knowledge Agents (KA) empowering individuals and businesses: https://saharalabs.ai/

IO Research (fka antbit) - Series A ($30.0M) | Decentralized computing network of global GPU resources enabling the development, execution, and scaling of machine learning and AI applications: https://io.net/

Agio Rating - Seed ($4.6M) | Digital asset risk analysis and ratings service using on-chain and off-chain data sources to predict defaults: https://www.agioratings.io/

Hedgehog Protocol - Seed ($1.5M) | Protocol for hedging and trading derivatives associated with gas costs: https://www.thehedgehog.io/

The Open Network (aka. TON) - Private Sale ($8.0M) | Proof of stake layer 1 blockchain network designed by Telegram: https://ton.org/

Synnax - Seed ($1.0M) | AI enabled credit intelligence and analysis platform providing credit ratings for both on-chain and off-chain entities: https://www.synnax.ai/

Firewall - Seed ($3.7M) | Security infrastructure providing firewall solutions for blockchain networks to prevent smart contract exploits: https://usefirewall.com/

Aevo - Series A+ ($8.8M) | Decentralized derivatives exchange for options and perpetual futures built on the Aevo Layer 2 network: https://www.aevo.xyz/

SX Network - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | EVM-compatible Layer 2 network purpose built for peet-to-peer betting and predictions markets: https://www.sx.technology/

VaultEscrow - Seed ($8.0M) | Decentralized multi-chain staking and discovery platform: https://www.ve.finance/

Zama - Series A ($73.0M) | Developer of an open source Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) solution geared for blockchain and AI applications: https://www.zama.ai/

Cosmology - Seed ($5.0M) | Developer tooling product suite geared to the IBC ecosystem empowering seamless interactions with Cosmos: https://cosmology.zone/

Bison - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Zero-knowledge rollup solution for the Bitcoin ecosystem: https://bisonlabs.io/#/dashboard

Beoble - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Communication infrastructure and ecosystem that allows users to chat between wallets: https://www.beoble.io/

Blackwing - Seed ($4.5M) | Modular blockchain that enables liquidation free leverage trading for long tail assets via a novel construct called Limitless Pools: https://blackwing.fi/

Oyl - Seed ($3.0M) | Wallet and trading platform for holding and investing in bitcoin-native assets: https://www.oyl.io/

Masa - Public Sale ($8.8M) | Decentralized marketplace and network for users' personal data secured by zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology: https://www.masa.finance/

Orion Protocol - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | DeFi platform providing aggregated liquidity from both centralized and decentralized exchanges across multiple blockchains: https://orion.xyz/

DeBox - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized identity (DID) based Web3 Social Platform: https://debox.pro/

Versatus (aka. VRRB Labs) - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Developer of LASR, a stateless rollup enabling scalability for blockchain networks: https://versatus.io/

CryptoSlam - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | NFT data and analytics aggregator: https://www.cryptoslam.io/

Kravata - Seed ($3.6M) | Fiat-to-crypto payment on- and off- ramps geared to Latin American businesses: https://www.kravata.co/

Nirvana Labs - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Web3-native cloud provider designed to reduce cloud centralization and promote decentralized infrastructure: https://nirvanalabs.io/

GoPlus Security - Seed+ ($4.0M) | Decentralized user security network providing developer security API's, token risk classification, personal security products, and smart contract analysis tools: https://gopluslabs.io/

UXUY - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Cross-chain liquidity aggregation protocol to seamlessly swap and exchange tokens across multiple blockchain networks: https://uxuy.com/

Optimism - Private Sale ($89.0M) | Ethereum Layer 2 solution that utilizes optimistic rollup technology: https://www.optimism.io/

QnA3 - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | AI-powered Web3 knowledge sharing and search platform: https://qna3.ai/vote

Cellula - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | On-chain autonomous life simulation strategy game: https://www.cellula.live/

NFPrompt - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Prompt artist platform for AI-generated NFTs: https://nfprompt.io/

Derivio - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized structured derivatives ecosystem on zkSync: https://derivio.xyz/

Ethena - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Developer of permissionless dollar-denominated savings instruments including US dollar stablecoin and digitally native savings bond: https://www.ethena.fi/

COTI - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Privacy centric Layer 2 network built on Ethereum: https://coti.io/

Poolz - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Open-source cross-chain launchpad platform enabling crypto projects to raise funds before listing: https://www.poolz.finance/

Zeus Network - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Permissionless cross-chain communication layer between the Bitcoin and Solana networks: https://zeusnetwork.xyz/

New Funds

MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator - Accelerator (Not Disclosed)

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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 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.