AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #76

🗓️ Week of: June 9-15, 2024

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

$167M+ was raised across 48 funding rounds in Web3. Dealflow remains strong as the summer months approach. Despite seemingly good economic news from the US, with inflation showing signs of slowing and the Fed considering a rate cut later this year, broader crypto markets have taken a tumble. It's still too early to tell what impacts this may have on Web3 venture, but deal making is likely to slow until the fall.

Zooming in, infrastructure led the way, attracting the most capital, primarily through funding rounds for developer tooling platforms and data-oriented services (e.g., Nuffle Labs and Ava Protocol, both rounds led by Electric Capital). Additionally, this week saw the announcement and closing of several new funds, with Paradigm finally closing their $850M Fund III (covered in this edition).

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Nexus announced $25M in Series A financing co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital. The round included participation from Dragonfly Capital, Faction Ventures, and Blockchain Builders Fund. This follows a previously undisclosed initial $2.2M seed funding round led by Dragonfly in late 2022, which included Alliance, SV Angel, and Blockchain Builders Fund.

Nexus focuses on enabling large-scale verifiable computing using zero-knowledge proofs. Founded in 2022 at Stanford University, Nexus developed the Nexus zkVM, a modular, extensible, and open-source virtual machine optimized for provable computation. The zkVM supports high-level languages like Rust and offers tools for highly efficient, incrementally verifiable computation. Nexus is also developing the Nexus Network, a massively parallelized proof network for executing and proving the Nexus zkVM.

Why this matters?👉 Zero-knowledge proof technology remains at the forefront and will play a critical role in the continued development of decentralized networks. By further scaling zero-knowledge cryptography, proof generation, and verification, projects like Nexus make zero-knowledge proofs accessible to developers, while also driving down the cost of generating proofs and required computational resources.

😎 Noteworthy Company

➡️ Paradigm is a research-driven technology investment firm focusing on crypto and related technologies at the frontier. The firm was co-founded by Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, and Matt Huang, formerly of Sequoia Capital, in 2018 and has since grown into one of the largest venture investors within the crypto industry.

Paradigm's investment strategy spans various stages and sectors within the blockchain ecosystem, including an EIR incubation program, early-stage startups, and established companies. Some of its most notable investments include Chainalysis, OpenSea, Fireblocks, and MoonPay. In addition to investing, Paradigm builds and contributes to projects that advance the frontier, including releasing over a dozen open-source projects such as Foundry, Flux, and Reth.

Recently, Paradigm announced the closing of their $850M Fund III. The fund has already been deploying capital throughout 2024, leading notable rounds for Monad, Farcaster, and Succinct Labs.

Why this matters?👉 The cat has been out of the bag for a while on Paradigm’s new fund, so it’s great to see it successfully closed. Despite being smaller than its $2.5B predecessor, which featured a highly publicized write-off on FTX, the fact that Paradigm could still muster over a half-billion in LP commitments is incredible, especially given the crypto winter of 2022-23. More importantly, this represents more capital to further support founders and projects building for the next wave of Web3, which Paradigm will likely be on the forefront.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Arthur Mining - Debt ($2.5M) | Developer and operator of high-performance data centers for bitcoin mining operating in the US and Brazil: https://arthurmining.com

Ink Finance - Seed ($5.0M) | Multichain financial governance protocol for DAOs, protocols, and asset managers: https://www.inkfinance.xyz/

Bitballl - Strategic ($2.0M) | Web3 sports metaverse platform: https://home.bitball.io/

Jellybean - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Transforms ordinary products into exclusive immersive digital experiences for collectors and fans: https://www.jellybean.xyz/

Nexus - Seed ($2.2M) | Massively-parallelized proof network and developer of Nexus Zero Knowledge Machine, an open source virtual machine system capable of generating proofs for any computation: https://nexus.xyz/

Nexus - Series A ($25.0M) | Massively-parallelized proof network and developer of Nexus Zero Knowledge Machine, an open source virtual machine system capable of generating proofs for any computation: https://nexus.xyz/

Zyfi - Private Sale ($2.0M) | Paymaster-as-a-Service protocol providing a gas abstraction layer on zkSync: https://www.zyfi.org/

Squads - Series A ($10.0M) | Multi-signature wallet protocol focused on the Solana ecosystem: https://www.sqds.io/

Honeypot Finance - Strategic ($1.3M) | Community-run DeFi hub built on Berachain: https://honeypotfinance.xyz/

UpBots - Private Sale ($4.0M) | All-in-one trading ecosystem for cryptocurrency including automated bots, social trading, and advanced analytics: https://upbots.com/

Zircuit - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup with AI-enabled sequencer-level security: https://www.zircuit.com/

Bullpen - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Telegram trading bot featuring a mobile first wallet, trading interface, and generative insights: https://www.bullpen.fi/

Qiro Finance - Seed ($1.2M) | Institutional on-chain private credit protocol: https://www.qiro.fi/

Orbital7 - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Modular developer-suite and tools for Runes, BRC20, and other Bitcoin native assets: https://orbital7.io/

CryptoDo - Seed (Not Disclosed) | No-code Web3 DApp builder: https://www.cryptodo.app/

Ava Protocol (fka. OAK Network) - Seed+ ($4.5M) | Intent-based Eigenlayer Actively Validated Services (AVS) that seamlessly enables private autonomous transactions: https://avaprotocol.org/

Symbiotic - Seed ($5.8M) | generalized shared security system (i.e., restaking) system enabling decentralized networks to bootstrap fully sovereign ecosystems: https://symbiotic.fi/

Unite (aka. Taki Games) - Seed+ ($3.0M) | Layer 3 blockchain solution for mass-market mobile games: https://www.unite.io/

Multi Universe Central (aka. MUC) - Private Sale ($4.0M) | Portfolio of decentralized IP assets built on Polygon: https://multiuniversecentral.io/

Cookie3 - Public Sale ($0.4M) | Web3 marketing protocol and AI data layer: https://www.cookie3.com/

BITAI - Seed ($20.0M) | AI powered cryptocurrency exchange and trading system: https://x.com/BITAIOFFICIAL

Codatta - Seed ($2.5M) | Human-centric decentralized data confidence protocol built for AI: https://codatta.io/

Skytopia - Seed ($2.4M) | Web3 entertainment brand that connects games and communities to create an immersive entertainment metaverse: https://skytopia.io/

Yuliverse - Seed+ ($4.0M) | Game-based social application offering an alternate reality meta-universe parallel to the real world: https://www.yuliverse.com/

Irys (fka. Bundlr) - Strategic ($3.7M) | Data provenance layer to scale permanent data and precisely attribute its origin: https://irys.xyz/

Holdstation - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Smart contract based digital assets wallets tailored to on-chain futures trading: https://holdstation.com/

GenomesDAO - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | Biotech decentralized autonomous organization developing user-owned genomics database and DNA data vaults: https://genomes.io/

Kima - Seed ($5.0M) | Infrastructure-agnostic money transfer and settlement protocol: https://kima.finance/

Pixelverse - Private Sale ($5.5M) | Web3 gaming studio and platform set in a cyberpunk pixelated universe: https://pixelverse.xyz/

D-Drops - Seed ($0.5M) | Web3 location-based treasure hunting game: https://ddrops.world/

Layer 3 - Series A ($15.0M) | Omnichain identity and distribution protocol for incentivization and rewards: https://layer3.xyz/

Strands - Seed ($3.0M) | Decentralized finance platform offering automated investment strategies and liquidity provision: https://www.strands.finance/

Nexus Network - Seed ($1.0M) | Non-custodial staking platform for bridged assets: https://www.nexusnetwork.live/

Particle - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized leverage trading protocol for any types of digital assets: https://www.particle.trade/

Spiko - Seed ($4.3M) | Financial services firm offering tokenized fund products including US and EU money market funds: https://www.spiko.xyz/

StarNest - Seed ($6.0M) | Web3 music industry ecosystem: https://www.starnest.app/

REVOX (fka. ReadON) - Strategic ($3.5M) | Modular on-chain AI network connecting autonomous agents with smart contracts: https://www.revox.ai/

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

Optopia - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Intent-centric Layer 2 blockchain designed for AI applications: https://www.optopia.ai/

Nuffle Labs - Private Sale ($13.0M) | Developer of NEAR Data Availability (DA) and the NEAR Fast Finality Layer (NFFL): https://nuff.tech/

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

RepoSwap - Seed (Not Disclosed) | Decentralized finance platform for token launches, liquidity provisions, and cross-chain trading: https://reposwap.io/

Folks Finance - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | DeFi protocol for lending, borrowing, and trading built on Algorand: https://folks.finance/

Orbital7 - Private Sale ($0.2M) | Modular developer-suite and tools for Runes, BRC20, and other Bitcoin native assets: https://orbital7.io/

Mirada AI - Private Sale ($0.6M) | Decentralized generative AI platform and tools for audio, visual, animation creation, chatbot, and search engine: https://mirada.ai/

PrivateAI - Private Sale (Not Disclosed) | AI protocol to store, process, validate, and sell data assets: https://www.privateai.com/

STAGE - Private Sale ($2.4M) | Web3 music and competition platform: https://www.stage.community/

Elys Network - Seed ($2.5M) | Cosmos SDK based Layer 1 blockchain offering a decentralized suite of financial applications in the Cosmos ecosystem: https://elys.network/

New Funds

Paradigm - Fund III ($850M)

Equilibrium Ventures - Fund I ($30M)

Moonbeam - Moonbeam Innovation Fund ($13M)

SevenX Ventures - AO Ecosystem Fund ($10M)

Manta Foundation - EcoFund ($50M)

🙌 Cool Resources

L2BEAT, an analytics and research website for Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solutions

🐕 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.