AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #64

🗓️ Week of: Mar 17-23, 2024

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

$283M+ was raised across 50 funding rounds in Web3. Dealflow shows no signs of slowing, with this week recording the highest number of announced deals since the start of 2023. Capital is certainly flowing into startups and projects as the broader crypto market maintains optimism, despite a BTC correction last week and a flurry of exuberance in memecoins that has seen millions in capital flow into many short-lived projects. Given these continued favorable market conditions, Layer 1 & 2 projects launching native tokens continue to lead funding, with financial services (i.e., CeFi) also attracting venture capital as trading volumes and transaction fees reach levels seen in 2021-22. Moreover, the venture environment shows signs of improvement as a growing cohort of Web3 companies are able to raise funds beyond Seed and Series A stages.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Figure Markets announced a $60M Series A funding round. The round was led by Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital, and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Distributed Global, Ribbit Capital, CMT Digital, among others.

Figure Markets is a standalone company that was spun out from fintech firm Figure Technologies, co-founded by Mike Cagney and June Ou, who are also the founders of SoFi. Figure Markets is set to launch a crypto exchange and blockchain-native security marketplace. This exchange plans to leverage a decentralized custody model, incorporating Multi-Party Computation (MPC) wallets to eliminate the need for a central custodian or clearing agent and to mitigate counterparty risk. The platform will also offer liquidity features, providing investors with options for lending and borrowing assets. Moreover, the exchange will start with crypto products but intends to offer trading in a variety of equity, fixed income, and alternative investment products. It will also use the Provenance Blockchain, which was originally developed by Figure Technologies.

Why this matters?👉 Figure Technologies is a sleeping giant in the space of tokenization, having brought over $8 billion worth of consumer loans on-chain. Figure Markets serves as a natural progression as the company doubles down on providing a platform to trade and invest in blockchain-native assets. Not to mention, the founders have successfully built two unicorns. However, while the company shows great promise, over 75% of daily trading volumes occur on the top 10 crypto trading platforms, demonstrating power-law distribution effects in the relatively mature segment for crypto exchanges. This could make it a tough "hill" to climb for a new entrant to capture marketshare, regardless of their pedigree.

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ Succinct Labs build developer tooling and infrastructure for zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology, aiming to lower the barriers for developers in utilizing ZK proofs.

Its inaugural product, SP1, is an open-source zkVM that enables developers to write in Rust without sacrificing performance. It facilitates the reuse of existing crates and libraries and allows for quick iterations with auditable and maintainable code, eliminating the need for hand-written, specialized approaches to build ZK proofs. Additionally, Succinct plans to launch the Succinct Prover Network, a hosted infrastructure layer allowing any application to outsource proof-generation. This network aims to provide fast and affordable proofs generated by a cadre of specialized provers. Currently, teams such as Celestia, Wormhole, Lido, Avail, Near, and Gnosis utilize Succinct’s infrastructure to develop ZK-enabled applications.

Founded by Uma Roy and John Guibas, Succinct recently announced a combined funding round totaling $55 million ($12 million Seed + $43 million Series A), led by Paradigm with contributions from Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Geometry, ZK Validator, and angels, including Sreeram Kannan from Eigenlayer, Sandeep Nailwal and Daniel Lubarov from Polygon, Elad Gil, among others.

Why this matters?👉 ZK technology has been a frontier technology that historically required specialized expertise and custom cryptography, creating substantial barriers to its effective implementation in everyday applications. Succinct is pivotal as it provides the core tools to simplify the use and potential widespread adoption of ZK proofs. The wide adoption of ZK proofs allows for the verification of information without disclosing specific details, thereby facilitating decentralization at scale and reducing the computational burden on blockchain networks and their applications.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Note - This list does not included the 33 memecoin private sales that have been reported this past week. For a full list of the projects check out ZachXBT’s post or DeFiLlama for further info

TunaChain - Public Sale ($8.9M) | Modular Layer 2 solution on Bitcoin, featuring a ZK-OP hybrid approach that integrates Ethereum's EVM capabilities: https://tunachain.io/

Crypto Rogue Games - Seed ($1.5M) | Web3 game studio and developer of Crystals of Naramunz, a blockchain action role-playing game: https://naramunz.com/

XPLA - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) x| Content-driven, universal gaming and entertainment focused Layer 1 blockchain network developed by Team C2X: https://xpla.io/

Zone (fka. Appzone) - Seed ($8.5M) | Layer 1 blockchain network that enables payments and acceptance of digital currencies: https://zonenetwork.com/

Figure Markets - Series A ($60.0M) | Crypto exchange and blockchain-native security marketplace enabled by decentralized custody via Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology: https://www.figuremarkets.com/

Flash Protocol - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Taproot-powered decentralized protocol to mint, trade and earn Bitcoin native assets: https://flashprotocol.xyz/

Entangle - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Omnichain infrastructure consisting of interoperability primitives and tools including messaging protocol and high-frequency data feeds: https://entangle.fi/

Juice Finance - Seed ($1.0M) | Cross-margin lending platform built on Blast: https://www.juice.finance/

NMKR - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Tokenization service to create and managed tokenized assets or NFTs on the Cardano blockchain network: https://www.nmkr.io/

Tokenize - Series A+ ($11.5M) | Digital asset exchange catered to the South East Asian market: https://tokenize.exchange/

Keyring Network - Seed ($6.0M) | Institutional-grade compliance solution and permissioning tools for compliant transactions on-chain, powered by zero-knowledge (ZK) technology: https://keyring.network/

Mantra - Private Sale ($11.0M) | Layer 1 blockchain catered to tokenized real world assets (RWAs): https://www.mantrachain.io/

ZKasino - Series A (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized crypto betting and blockchain casino leveraging zero-knowledge proof technology: https://play.zkasino.io/

Bitbrand - Seed ($0.5M) | Luxury digital products and content platform enabled by blockchain technology: https://bitbrand.com/

Trex20 - Seed ($1.0M) x| GameFi platform built on Bitcoin: https://trex20.xyz/

Metaverse HQ - Seed ($1.1M) | Web3 technology community and membership program: https://www.mvhq.io/

GRVT - Strategic ($2.2M) | Hybrid exchange (HEX) for cryptocurrency derivatives enabled by zero-knowledge (zk) proof technology built on zkSync: https://grvt.io/

CarrieVerse - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Content-rich metaverse platform built around a virtual character called Carrie and her friends: https://www.carrieverse.com/

Umoja - Seed+ ($2.0M) | Digital asset hedging protocol to minimize cryptocurrency exposure risk from market losses: https://umoja.xyz/

HyperPlay - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Web3 game launcher that enables players to carry their wallet, NFTs, tokens, and achievements into every game: https://www.hyperplay.xyz/

Dolomite - Strategic ($0.9M) | Decentralized margin trading and lending protocol built on Arbitrum: https://dolomite.io/

Gull Network - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Layer 3 solution for customizable token launches powered by Manta Network: https://www.gullnetwork.com/

Cathedral Studios - Seed ($6.7M) | Game studio and developer of Bornless, a free-to-play first-person-shooter horror game: https://www.thebornless.com/

Kemet Trading - Seed+ ($5.0M) | Institutional-grade single access point for digital asset derivatives trading, liquidity, data, trade execution and post-trade workflows: https://www.kemettrading.com/

EarlyFans - Seed ($1.5M) | SocialFi app built on Blast enabling creators to monetize their content: https://www.earlyfans.xyz/

Morph - Seed ($20.0M) | Consumer-centric layer 2 blockchain combining optimistic rollups and zero-knowledge (ZK) technology: https://www.morphl2.io/

Ooga Booga - Seed ($1.0M) | Decentralized exchange aggregator based on Berachain: https://www.oogabooga.io/

eesee - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Gamified social marketplace for digital assets: https://eesee.io/

Mystiko.Network - Seed ($18.0M) | Zero knowledge (ZK) technology general infrastructure layer for Web3 providing a universal ZK protocol and a ZK software development kit: https://mystiko.network/

Castle of Blackwater - Private Sale ($1.0M) | Web3 social deduction game: https://castleofblackwater.com/

Asterix - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Developer of DND404 contract that interlinks a fungible ERC-20 and non-fungible ERC-721 token contracts: https://www.asterixlabs.io/

Cluster Protocol - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized network for compute resources enabling AI applications: https://www.clusterprotocol.io/

Nebula Revelation - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Web3 space-themed open-world game: https://nebularevelation.com/

Savage - Seed ($1.5M) | NFT ecosystem for photographers and videographers: https://savage.app/

KiloEx - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | User-friendly decentralized exchange for perpetual futures: https://www.kiloex.io/

OpenStamp - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Marketplace and mint service for BTC Stamps (SRC20, STAMPS, and SRC721) built on the STAMP Protocol: https://openstamp.io/home

CoinMart - Strategic ($3.0M) | Crypto trading platform and personal AI assistant: https://www.coinmart.nl/en

Tensorplex Labs - Seed ($3.0M) | Decentralized platform for open-source AI development and applications, leveraging existing principles of decentralized finance and proof-of-stake networks: https://www.tensorplex.ai/

Tanssi Network (Moondance Labs) - Private Sale ($6.0M) | Infrastructure protocol for deploying appchains via parachains on the Polkadot network: https://www.tanssi.network/

Bi.Social (aka. Bit Islands) - Seed ($3.0M) | Web3 social network for investment and trading: https://bi.social/

ANVM (aka. AINN Layer2) - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | EVM-compatible Bitcoin Layer2 network: https://anvm.io/

Espresso Systems - Series B ($28.0M) | Decentralized sequencer infrastructure for rollups enabled by the HotShot Layer 1 network: https://www.espressosys.com/

Succinct Labs - Seed ($12.0M) | Zero-knowledge (ZK) proof infrastructure including SP1, an open-source zkVM, and the Succinct Prover Network: https://succinct.xyz/

Succinct Labs - Series A ($43.0M) | Zero-knowledge (ZK) proof infrastructure including SP1, an open-source zkVM, and the Succinct Prover Network: https://succinct.xyz/

Rails - Seed ($6.2M) | Self-custodial crypto and derivatives exchange that leverages a central order book: https://rails.xyz/

Rollie Finance - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized perpetual exchanges built on Scroll: https://www.rollie.finance/

GAM3S.GG (fka. Polkastarter Gaming) - Private Sale ($2.0M) | Web3 game discovery and content aggregation platform formerly known as Polkastarter Gaming: https://gam3s.gg/

Sablier Finance - Seed ($4.5M) | Digital asset and token distribution streaming protocol: https://sablier.com/

Plena Finance - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Multi-chain, self-custodial wallet that supports account abstraction and offers encrypted news and insights: https://www.plena.finance/

Botto - Private Sale ($1.7M) | Decentralized autonomous artist platform that creates fine art NFTs based collective feedback from the community: https://botto.com/

New Funds

No new funds this week.

🙌 Cool Resources

Dragonfly 2023 Crypto Compensation Report

🐕 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.