AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #71

🗓️ Week of: May 5-11, 2024

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

$222M+ was raised across 40 funding rounds in Web3. The broader crypto markets remain resilient despite the pullback earlier this month, which appears to have had minimal immediate effect on Web3 ventures, as deal flow continues to maintain a rate of 30+ deals per week. However, with the crypto markets expected to experience a “crab walk” this summer, it's inevitable that the pace of deals will begin to slow as we head into June.

This week was notable for a series of new interoperability and cross-chain data protocols announcing funding. Additionally, tokenization projects show no signs of slowing down, with more new entrants in the space and seed rounds being announced, following major rounds from Centrifuge and Securitize.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Sophon raised $60M through a public node sale. Investors in the round included Maven 11, Paper Ventures, Spartan Group, and SevenX Ventures, along with other individual participants. The sale initially offered 200,000 nodes with a tiered pricing model, ranging from 0.0813 ETH to 2.0556 ETH per node. Investors purchased 121,000 nodes, with the remainder being bought by retail participants.

Sophon is a Layer 2 network constructed as a modular rollup leveraging zkSync's Hyperchain technology. The network is powered by a centralized sequencer, and node license holders can delegate their licenses to Sophon to earn a share of the network fees. Although the network has not yet been launched, it aims to provide an entertainment-focused ecosystem.

Why this matters?👉 Node sales are becoming a noteworthy trend for raising capital, with Sophon representing the largest raise so far. These rounds offer a unique alternative to traditional token launches, which are currently facing increasing headwinds under global securities laws. At the same time, selling nodes enables communities to have a direct, early stake in the operations and maintenance of the network, which may offer better incentive alignment than simply launching a token.

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ Arbelos Markets is a principal trading firm specializing in crypto derivatives. The firm provides liquidity to centralized and decentralized exchanges across spot, options, and futures markets. It also offers OTC derivatives transactions and bespoke hedging and yield solutions for leading crypto foundations, projects, and companies. The company leverages its proprietary Transparency Engine to offer real-time visibility and verifiability across its derivative operations and positions. In just six months following its launch, the company facilitated over $25 billion in derivatives trading volume across various trading channels.

Arbelos was founded by Joshua Lim and Shiliang Tang, the former head of derivatives at Genesis Trading and CIO of LedgerPrime, respectively. The company recently raised $28M in seed equity and debt financing led by Dragonfly Capital, alongside other investors such as Room40 Ventures, Selini Capital, and Breed VC, as well as FalconX, Circle Ventures, Paxos, P2 Ventures (formerly known as Polygon Ventures), Deribit, Chorus One, StarkWare, Immutable, and many angel investors

Why this matters?👉 Within a short period of time, Arbelos has become one of the largest options block liquidity providers. It aims to serve the liquidity and hedging needs of institutional investors, addressing the gap left by credible service providers following the crypto credit crisis in 2022. By offering enhanced transparency and reporting to creditors, the firm also seeks to mitigate counterparty risk across the broader markets, which was a major risk factor during the last cycle.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Bondex - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Web3 Professional network and talent marketplace: https://www.bondex.app/

MetaPhone - Strategic ($1.0M) | Web3-native mobile network and smartphone built on the TON blockchain: https://metaphone.io/

BitTap - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized non-custodial wallet for Taproot-based assets: https://www.bittap.org/

DwellFi - Seed ($3.0M) | Private fund administration and tokenization platform: https://dwell.fi/

XSwap - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Cross-chain swap protocol powered by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP): https://xswap.link/

DeepLink - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Web3 cloud gaming platform and decentralized AI cloud gaming platform: https://www.deeplink.cloud/

Liquidium - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Ordinal lending platform on Bitcoin: https://www.liquidium.fi/

Anapaya Systems - Strategic ($11.0M) | Developer of SCION-based networking software and solutions intended to provide secure inter-domain routing: https://www.anapaya.net/

Galaxis - Private Sale ($10.0M) | No-code Web3 and NFT toolkit for creating decentralized communities and memberships: https://galaxis.xyz/

Blade of God X - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Dark-themed, cross-platform action RPG game developed by Void Labs: https://bladeofgod.net/

Botanix - Seed ($8.5M) | Developer of Spiderchain, a decentralized Layer 2 EVM on Bitcoin: https://www.botanixlabs.xyz/

Lava - Private Sale ($11.0M) x| Modular data network of node providers focused on providing data access on any blockchain through remote procedure calls (RPCs), API's, and indexing: https://www.lavanet.xyz/

ZKM - Seed ($5.0M) | General purpose zero-knowledge Virtual Machine (zkVM) providing a unified settlement layer across blockchains: https://www.zkm.io/

Ambient Network - Seed ($2.0M) | Decentralized physical infrastructure network of environmental sensors and ambient dat: https://ambient.network/

Hemera (fka. W3W) - Seed ($2.6M) | Decentralized programmable indexing network and analytic tools for account-centric blockchain ecosystems: https://thehemera.com/

Electron - Seed ($1.0M) | Zero knowledge based universal proof aggregator (UPA) for proof-of-stake blockchains: https://www.electronlabs.org/

NuLink - Private Sale ($6.9M) | Zero-knowledge (ZK) provable data privacy platform and data availability layer for DApps: https://www.nulink.org/

Owlto Finance - Private Sale ($8.0M) | Intent-centric interoperability protocol providing seamless cross-chain bridging services: https://owlto.finance/

BlockBooster - Seed ($1.5M) | Venture studio centered in Asia, facilitating the development of next-generation protocols and software infrastructure in Web3: https://www.blockbooster.io/

Laagrange Labs - Seed ($13.2M) | Cross-chain infrastructure that enables the creation of generalized state proofs across all major blockchains using zero knowledge (ZK) proof technology: https://www.lagrange.dev/

CityPay - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Platform for business to accept cryptocurrency payments across web-payments, email payment orders, point of sale (POS) terminals, and initial deposit channels: https://www.citypay.io/

Slingshot - Private Sale ($3.0M) | Community organized and run centered around games and experiences: https://slingshotdao.com/

Arbelos Markets - Seed ($28.0M) | Digital assets trading firm providing principal liquidity across crypto derivatives markets: https://arbelos.xyz/

Sophon - Other ($60.0M) | Entertainment-focused ecosystem built as a modular rollup leveraging zkSync's Hyperchain technology: https://sophon.xyz/

GoMining - Strategic ($3.0M) | Global digital asset mining company and developer of liquid Bitcoin hashrate protocol: https://gmt.io/

Telos - Private Sale ($1.0M) | Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) Layer-1 blockchain network enabling zero knowledge technology: https://www.telos.net/

DEGEN WAR$ - Seed (Not Disclosed) | On-chain player-versus-player NFT card game built on Blast: https://degenwars.gg/

Seeds Labs - Seed ($12.0M) | Game studio and developer of Web3 battle royale game, Bladerite: https://www.theseeds.io/

DLC.Link - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Cross-chain infrastructure to enable smart contract settlement on native Bitcoin using Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs): https://www.dlc.link/

Zeal - Strategic ($2.0M) | Web3 wallet with embedded safety checks: https://www.zeal.app/

UXUY - Seed+ ($7.0M) | Cross-chain liquidity aggregation protocol to seamlessly swap and exchange tokens across multiple blockchain networks: https://uxuy.com/

AgriDEX - Seed ($5.0M) | Agricultural commodities tokenization platform and marketplace built on Solana: https://agridex.com/

Arcium - Private Sale ($5.5M) | Parallelized confidential computing network secured by multiparty computation execution environments (MXEs): https://arcium.com/

Arch Network - Seed ($7.0M) | Bitcoin-native application layer providing smart contract functionality via a Rust-based zero-knowledge (ZK) virtual machine: https://www.arch.network/

Elys Network - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Cosmos SDK based Layer 1 blockchain offering a decentralized suite of financial applications in the Cosmos ecosystem: https://elys.network/

Glacis - Seed ($2.1M) | Aggregator, router, firewall for cross-chain messages: https://glacislabs.com/

Euclid Protocol - Seed ($0.6M) | Decentralized unified cross-chain liquidity infrastructure powered by Nibiru: https://www.euclidprotocol.io/

BAC Games - Seed ($1.5M) | Web3 racing game based on the Blast blockchain: https://www.bacgame.io/

StakedGain - Seed ($0.5M) | Multi-chain decentralized staking platform: https://www.stakedgain.com/

0xGen - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | DeFi liquidity aggregator enabled by AI: https://0xgen.io/

New Funds

No new funds this week.

🙌 Cool Resources

a16z Token Launch Playbook, covering: operational guidelines for token launches, from creation to custody, 5 rules for token launches, and how to navigate token launch risks.

🐕 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.