AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #73

🗓️ Week of: May 19-25, 2024

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

$295M+ was raised across 34 funding rounds in Web3. Deal flow continues to remain stable. This week saw one of the largest deals of 2024, with Farcaster raising $150M.

However, the biggest highlight of the week comes from encouraging signals that the political and regulatory climate towards crypto might be changing in the U.S. This included the House's passage of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), a bill that would establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the U.S., as well as the approval for ETH ETFs to be listed on major exchanges (although issuers have not been approved yet). While neither is a 'smoking gun' and require multiple other layers of approvals, both demonstrate a changing tone among U.S. lawmakers towards the industry, potentially fostering a more pragmatic approach to naturing crypto development within the U.S.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Farcaster raised $150M in Series A funding led by Paradigm. a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, Haun Ventures, Variant Fund, Standard Crypto, and others also participated. The round valued the project at $1B.

Farcaster is developed by Merkle Manufactory, a software company founded by Coinbase alumni Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan. Farcaster is a blockchain-based public social network similar to Twitter and Reddit, where users can create profiles, post "casts," and follow others. Users own their accounts and relationships with other users (i.e., the social graph) and are free to move between different apps or clients. Warpcast serves as a client for Farcaster, allowing users to create profiles and post public messages.

Why this matters?👉 Covered in Funding Round Up #66, this deal has been known for a while and is also one of the largest rounds of 2024. With over 500K users signed up, Farcaster has positioned itself as the leading Web3 social platform. However, with only 60K monthly active users and over 45K daily active users, it does raise the question of whether Farcaster’s valuation might be too ‘rich.’

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ Blockless is an infrastructure platform designed to launch, integrate, and secure Network Neutral Applications (nnApps), a new type of decentralized application compatible with all blockchain networks, but free from their limitations. The platform and underlying network enable users to contribute computational power to applications simply by using them. This approach shifts reliance from institutional operators to a community-driven model, leveraging a framework with nestled node infrastructure for resource sharing.

Blockless allows applications to utilize their users’ devices for computational tasks, rewarding them in the process. This setup supports intensive computations for machine learning, AI, and gaming in a decentralized, efficient off-chain environment, while maintaining governance and data availability on blockchains such as Ethereum and Celestia. By dynamically matching tasks to the most suitable nodes, Blockless ensures optimal performance and security, reducing barriers for both users and developers to engage in decentralized edge computing.

Blockless was co-founded in 2022 by Butian Li, Derek Anderson (formerly of Akash Network), Michael Chen (formerly of Binance), and Liam Zhang. The company recently raised $8M in combined pre-seed and seed funding led by NGC Ventures, M31 Capital, and Frachtis.

Why this matters?👉 The project underscores another decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), shifting computation off-chain and connecting applications with users to fulfill their computational power needs via its network. DePIN, specifically for computational resources, has been growing as one of the more promising areas of Web3 uses-case and providing sustainable tokenomics.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Sobert - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Global payments platform and tools for creative freelancers: https://mysorbet.xyz/

ElFi Protocol - Strategic ($5.0M) | Decentralized derivatives trading platform offering various portfolio margin solutions: https://www.elfi.xyz/

Blockless - Seed ($8.0M) | Standardized network and framework to build Network Neutral Applications (nnApps), fully integrated with any layer 1 blockchain network: https://blockless.network/

RunesTerminal - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Infrastructure provider for Runes Protocol including runes explorer, launchpad, wiki, and marketplace: https://runesterminal.io/

Nexis Network - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Layer 1 EVM compatible blockchain network catered to artificial intelligence: https://nexis.network/

Aevo - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized derivatives exchange for options and perpetual futures built on the Aevo Layer 2 network: https://www.aevo.xyz/

Farcaster (aka. Merkle Manufactory) - Series A ($150.0M) | Blockchain-based public social network protocol supporting multiple clients: https://www.farcaster.xyz/

Monad Labs - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Proof-of-stake (PoS) Layer 1 blockchain and decentralized computation platform that combines the best of performance and portability: https://www.monad.xyz/

Kelp DAO - Private Sale ($9.0M) | Multichain liquid staking platform and developer of Liquid Restaked Token (LRT), rsETH, designed to offer liquidity to illiquid assets deposited into restaking platforms: https://kelpdao.xyz/

Weather XM - Series A ($7.7M) | Community powered weather network, that rewards weather station owners and provides accurate weather services: https://weatherxm.com/

Dope DAO - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), community driven, gaming metaverse project inspired by hip-hop culture: https://dopewars.xyz/

StripChain - Private Sale ($10.1M) | Intent based interoperability protocol enabling chain abstraction: https://www.stripchain.xyz/

Zaros - Private Sale ($1.8M) | Decentralized exchange that connects Liquid ReStaking (LRTs) and Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) with perpetual futures: https://www.zaros.fi/

Aria - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Web3 RPG game where players can freely roam in an open world environment: https://sit.playariagame.com/

UniTap - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | DeFi hub and swap protocol for Runes and BRC-20 tokens: https://unitap.io/

MUA DAO - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and developer of AI + Humanity Modular Universal Asset Protocol: https://muadao.build/

Pencils Protocol (aka. PenPad) - Seed ($2.1M) | Launch platform for fair-launch projects built on Scroll: https://penpad.io/

IVX - Seed ($1.2M) | On-chain automated market maker (AMM) for crypto asset options built on Berachain: https://artio.ivx.fi/

Omakase - Private Placement (Not Disclosed) | Web3 infrastructure provider specializing in validator operation, development, maintenance, and technical consulting services: https://0xmakase.co.jp/

Dora Factory - Private Sale ($10.0M) | Developer of protocols, toolings, and public good infrastructures that help open source communities thrive: https://dorafactory.org/

Plume Network - Seed ($10.0M) | Modular Layer 2 blockchain dedicated for development and issuance of real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain: https://www.plumenetwork.xyz/

Fantom Foundation - Private Sale ($10.0M) | High-performance EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain and and secure smart-contract platform: https://fantom.foundation/

Cysic - Seed+ ($12.0M) | Developer of hardware to increase the efficiency of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof generation including the development of a Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) semiconductor for multi-scalar multiplication (MSM): https://cysic.xyz/

Mantra - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Layer 1 blockchain catered to tokenized real world assets (RWAs): https://www.mantrachain.io/

Unlockit - Seed ($1.5M) | Real estate digitalization and property management platform built using blockchain technology: https://unlockit.io/

Alphaledger - Series A ($9.5M) | Fixed income issuance, management, and trading platform built using blockchain technology: https://www.alphaledger.com/

Master Protocol - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Modularized restaking protocol for multi-chain liquidity staking tokens: https://www.masterprotocol.xyz/

Jambo - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Web3 mobile infrastructure network and developer of the JamboPhone: https://www.jambo.technology/

MetaLex - Seed ($2.8M) | Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) management platform combining onchain protocols and offchain legal arrangements: https://www.metalex.tech/

RunesFi - Private Sale ($0.4M) | DeFI hub and platform for Runes Protocol based assets: https://runesfi.io/

LayerEdge - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Bitcoin layer 2 solution that leverages Optimistic Rollups and a Hybrid Modular Data Availability (DA) layer: https://www.layeredge.io/en

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

Applied Digital - Convertible Debt ($42.1M) | Developer and operator of datacenters across North America to provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing (HPC) industry: https://applieddigital.com/

IntentX - Public Sale ($2.8M) | OTC derivatives exchange offering perpetual futures trading: https://intentx.io/

New Funds

TrueBridge Capital Partners - TrueBridge Blockchain I ($62M)

🙌 Cool Resources

LiquiFi, How to Launch a Token: Pre-Launch, resource guide

🐕 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.