AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #74

🗓️ Week of: May 26 - June 1, 2024

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

$330M+ was raised across 46 funding rounds in Web3. This week marked a notable uptick in deal flow in over two months. This could be potentially driven by the encouraging shifts being made within the U.S. regulatory landscape covered in last week’s Funding Roundup. At the same time, many of the deals are likely being announced ahead of the summer season when deal making tends to slowdown.

Nevertheless, Series A and beyond rounds are continuing to see funding week-over-week, showing promising signals for later stage Web3 projects. This week also witnessed a handful of new stablecoin and payment projects attracting funding in showing investors are still interested in the potential crypto brings to remittances and cross-border payments.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Bitdeer announced $100M in gross proceeds in a private placement made with the creator of the USDT stablecoin, Tether International Limited (i.e., Tether). The transaction consisted of Tether purchasing 18M in Class A shares of Bitdeer along with $50M worth of warrants that could be exercised in the future. Cantor Fitzgerald served as the acting placement agent for the transaction.

Bitdeer is a high-performance computing and cloud solutions provider. Their solutions are primarily catered to digital asset mining and other compute-intensive workloads, including AI. The company handles complex processes involved in computing, such as equipment procurement, transport logistics, datacenter design, construction, equipment management, and daily operations. Bitdeer has deployed datacenters spanning the U.S., Norway, and Bhutan.

Why this matters?👉 Bitdeer intends to use the new funding for data center expansion and ASIC-based mining rig and chip development with the intentions of expanding its exa hash (i.e., Hash Rate) capabilities. Miners are requiring more efficient equipment post-Bitcoin’s halving, which Bitdeer seeks to ultimately supply. Furthermore, this deal underscores Tether’s expansion into new business lines going beyond its core-USDT stablecoin offering.

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ Babylon is a protocol designed to enhance the security and decentralization of Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains by leveraging the Bitcoin network. It achieves this by using the Bitcoin network as a timestamping server and integrating Bitcoin as a native staking asset in other blockchains. This approach allows emerging PoS blockchains to secure their networks without relying solely on their native tokens and associated token raises to distribute those tokens to a diversified holder base. Furthermore, Babylon introduces a new method for Bitcoin holders to stake their coins on PoS blockchains, enabling them to earn passive yields.

The project was founded by David Tse and Mingchao Yu. Recently Babylon announced $70M in funding led by Paradigm alongside Polychain, Bullish, Hashkey Capital, HackVC, Galaxy Digital and other prominent venture firms. The round also featured participation from prominent validators including P2P, Everstake Capital, and nine other firms. The latest round follows a strategic round led by Binance earlier this year as well as $18M Series A in December of 2023.

Why this matters?👉 Covered in Funding Round Up #49, Babylon seeks to introduce a new standard for network security centered around Bitcoin. The platform could have profound benefits for new Layer 1 and 2 protocols by essentially renting the security of Bitcoin’s network through a novel staking mechanism. It will also provide BTC holders with a new mechanism to put their BTC to work while passively earning yield. As witnessed with EigenLayer and the adoption of its restaking protocol for ETH, Babylon could see billions in capital locked up in its protocol (e.g., TVL) while also fostering the next wave of billions in TVL-associated restaking derivative types of products.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Song of Rising - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Pixel-style metaverse project: https://www.songofrising.com/

Chainge Finance - Private Sale ($13.0M) | Cross-chain decentralized exchange and liquidity aggregator: https://chainge.finance/

NodeOps - Seed ($5.0M) | Node deployment, operations, and development platform: https://www.nodeops.xyz/

El Dorado - Seed ($3.0M) | Peer-to-peer payments and digital asset wallet focused on Latin America: https://eldorado.io/en/

HMX - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized digital asset perpetual and spot exchange: https://hmx.org/arbitrum

Switchboard - Series A ($7.5M) | Multi-chain oracle protocol for general-purpose data feeds and verifiable randomness: https://switchboard.xyz/

Anzen - Seed ($4.0M) | Developer of USDz, a stablecoin backed by a diversified portfolio of private credit assets: https://anzen.finance/

OpenSocial - Seed ($5.0M) | Open-source social infrastructure layer to power native web3 social experiences: https://www.opensocial.co/

Parasail (fka. Repl) - Seed ($4.0M) | Repledging protocol for pledged decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) assets: https://www.parasail.network/

GaiaNet - Seed ($10.0M) | Decentralized computing infrastructure and network for generative AI agents: https://www.gaianet.ai/

Coinflow - Seed ($2.3M) | Web3 payment infrastructure solutions provider: https://coinflow.cash/

Félix - Series A ($15.5M) | Chat-base payments platform enabled by AI and blockchain technology: https://felixpago.com/

ZTLment - Seed ($2.6M) | Payment and wallet infrastructure to faciliate programmable and peer-to-peer payments: https://ztlment.com/

Zap Africa - Seed ($0.3M) | Digital asset trading platform and cross-border remittance service across Africa: https://zap.africa/

defi.money - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Developer of $MONEY, a USD-based collateralized debt position (CDP) stablecoin protocol and liquidity layer: https://defi.money/

Supervillian Labs - Seed ($4.5M) | Web3 game studio developing socially interactive games: https://supervlabs.io/

Cookie3 - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Web3 marketing protocol and AI data layer: https://www.cookie3.com/

Aperture Finance - Series A ($6.7M) | DeFi automation platform enabled by AI-powered intent based infrastructure: https://www.aperture.finance/

MetaToken - Private Sale ($5.0M) | Immersive casino harnessing Web3 technology: https://www.metatoken.gg/

Lumoz (fka. Opside) - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Zero knowledge (ZK) as a service platform that offers 3-layer blockchain architecture: https://opside.network/

API3 - Private Sale ($4.0M) | Oracle solution that bridges the gap between off-chain data and on-chain applications: https://api3.org/

Play AI - Seed ($4.3M) | Modular blockchain infrastructure designed deploy AI agents and models for gaming: https://playai.network/

SCRYPT - Strategic ($5.0M) | Swiss financial service provider specializing in crypto assets for Web3 companies and institutions: https://www.scrypt.swiss/

Fortunafi - Seed ($9.5M) | Developer of Tokenized Asset Protocol (TAP), a cross-chain tokenization platform and investment fund protocol: https://www.fortunafi.com/

XMAQUINA - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) of tokenized autonomous robots: https://www.xmaquina.io/

Smart Transactions - Seed ($5.5M) | Transaction creation and execution framework, run by decentralized solvers: https://www.stxn.io/

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

Pakt - Seed ($0.8M) | Developer toolkit and templates for on-chain websites and social networks: https://pakt.world/

Marketnode - Series A (Not Disclosed) | Distributed ledger technology (DLT) digital market infrastructure spanning credit, funds and structured products founded by SGX Group and Temasek: https://www.marketnode.com/

Kuroro Beasts - Private Sale ($2.5M) | Multidimensional Web3 gaming ecosystem centered around animated beast characters: https://www.kuroro.com/

Babylon - Series B ($70.0M) | Protocol that enables time stamping and staking to be shared Bitcoin and other PoS blockchains: https://babylonchain.io/

NexGami (fka. Light eSports) - Seed ($2.5M) | Web3 eSports platform: https://www.nexgami.com/

ARPA - Private Sale ($6.0M) | Secure computation network for blockchain-adapted cryptography using a threshold BLS signature network to provides a reliable infrastructure for verifiable Random Number Generators (RNG): https://www.arpanetwork.io/en-US

UpRock - Seed ($4.0M) | People-powered AI data and decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) built on Solana: https://uprock.com/

Zentry (fka. GuildFi) - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Metagame layer for Web3 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG): https://zentry.com/

Neynar - Series A ($11.0M) | Developer platform for building decentralized social networks on the Farcaster protocol: https://neynar.com/

Plural Energy - Seed ($2.3M) | Investment platform for renewable energy projects enabled by blockchain technology: https://www.plural.xyz/

Stable Jack - Seed ($1.0M) | Stablecoin hub built on Avalanche offering a yield-bearing stablecoin, a leverage AVAX token, and stableswap protocol: https://www.stablejack.xyz/

TRALA - Strategic ($5.0M) | Subsidiary of Joycity focused on offering an all-in-one blockchain gaming platform: https://trala.me/

Mint Blockchain - Seed ($5.0M) | Layer 2 network built on OP Stack focusing on the NFT ecosystem: https://www.mintchain.io/

zCloak Network - Grant ($0.1M) | Privacy-first decentralized identity (DID) and verifiable computation infrastructure: https://zcloak.network/

Breezepay - Grant ($0.1M) | Stablecoin payment platform for online purchases: https://www.breezepay.com.au/

Carv - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Credential and self-sovereign identity (SSI) data infrastructure focused on gaming: https://carv.io/

Bitdeer - Private Placement ($100.0M) | High-performance computing provider and data center operator for digital asset mining and AI: https://www.bitdeer.com/

NexGami (fka. Light eSports) - Public Sale ($0.3M) | Web3 eSports platform: https://www.nexgami.com/

E Money Network - Private Sale ($3.3M) | Modular Layer 1 blockchain designed for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs): https://emoney.io/

New Funds

Figment Capital - Fund I (Not Disclosed)

CertiK - CertiK Ventures (Not Disclosed)

🙌 Cool Resources

LiquiFi, How to Launch a Token: Preparing for 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.