AWeb3VC - Funding Round Up #84

🗓️ Week of: Aug 4-10, 2024

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

$152M+ was raised across 31 funding rounds in Web3. Despite the chaos that opened the week, global markets, including crypto, have relatively rebounded. Macro data shows that markets remain sensitive to unfavorable economic news, with fears of a recession in the U.S. and other G20 economies still top of mind for many investors. Notwithstanding, Web3 venture carried on with deal flow in line with the average. However, considering the market meltdown and general summer slump, projects are likely to continue holding off on new funding announcements until the news cycle is less noisy.

Zooming in, real-world asset (RWA) projects continue to raise more capital as products and services expand beyond general tokenization into Layer 2 specific protocols (e.g., Lumia), lending marketplaces (e.g., Zoth), and expanding asset types like commodities (e.g., Elmnts). This week also highlighted ongoing development around the Move programming language, with new Layer 2s adopting Move-based virtual machines (e.g., Nexio and LYNC). Besides RWA and novel Layer 2s, AI and blockchain remain leading areas attracting investors' capital throughout 2024.

Finally, keeping a close eye on the developments surrounding Customers Bank, which was recently targeted with enforcement action by the U.S. Federal Reserve for inadequately policing illicit activity, particularly with digital asset clients. Customers is one of a limited cohort of banks in the U.S. that accept crypto clients. Without a friendly banking environment in the U.S. for crypto startups and projects, the industry could face major adversity, at least in the context of building and operating a business within the U.S.

🏆 Largest Funding Round

➡️ Lumia announced the completion of a node sale totaling $25M. The project reported selling over twenty-five thousand "HyperNodes" to institutional investors and community members. Lumia was previously known as Orion Protocol before a strategic shift in February of this year.

Lumia is a Layer 2 blockchain solution focused on DeFi and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. It leverages the Polygon CDK for modular blockchain development and EigenLayer’s restaking capabilities for security and improved capital efficiency, along with other modular technical components. Lumia's architecture includes a private Data Availability Committee (DAC) for data integrity, its own liquidity network (Lumia Stream), and decentralized sequencers for fast transaction finality. It supports zkML-Adapters to integrate off-chain AI models for various DeFi strategies. The native token, LUMIA (formerly ORN), is used for transaction fees, governance, node staking, and liquidity provision, aligning incentives across the ecosystem.

Why this matters?👉 Lumia highlights an emerging method for crypto projects to raise capital through node sales. Under this approach, projects sell the rights to operate network nodes, providing an immediate influx of capital while fostering network decentralization. Unlike token sales (ICOs), node sales can enhance network security and utility by incentivizing participants to contribute resources, potentially reducing regulatory scrutiny and fostering network sustainability. In 2024 alone, $125M has been raised via this method across new Layer 1 and Layer 2 projects, highlighting its growing popularity for bootstrapping new networks.

💸 Funding Rounds

Top 15 Rounds

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All Rounds

Cartridge - Series A ($7.5M) | Web3 gaming console, development platform, and game developer enabling Starknet-based games: https://cartridge.gg/

Stabble - Seed ($2.5M) | Solana-native decentralized exchange enabling protocol-managed liquidity features: https://stabble.org/

EthNano - Seed ($5.0M) | Multi-chain decentralized staking platform: https://ethnano.com/

Zoth - Strategic ($4.0M) | Institutional grade marketplace for on-chain tokenized real-world assets (RWA): https://zoth.io/

Elmnts - Seed ($2.0M) | Tokenized commodities platform providing investors access to mineral rights and royalties: https://www.elmnts.io/

Curio (aka. Duper) - Seed ($5.7M) | Game studio building on-chain real-time strategy (RTS) game that stores all game logic and state changes on-chain and allows players to enrich the core game logic via smart contracts: https://www.curio.gg/

MaiCoin - Series B+ (Not Disclosed) | Digital asset trading platform and exchange focused on the Taiwanese market: https://www.maicoin.com/

Lumia (fka. Orion Protocol) - Node Sale ($25.0M) | Layer 2 network enabling aggregated liquidity and built for real-world assets: https://orion.xyz/

Khalani - Seed ($2.5M) | Verifiable oracle protocol that enables AI and compute on any chain: https://khalani.network/

Digihost - Private Placement ($4.0M) | Bitcoin mining company operating various locations across the U.S.: https://digihost.ca/

Payman - Seed ($3.0M) | AI agent to human task and payment platform: https://www.paymanai.com/

Aidatify - Series A ($17.5M) | On-chain decentralized exchange information aggregation platform enabled by AI: https://www.aidatify.com/

DeAgentAI - Seed ($6.0M) | AI agent intelligent neural network enabled by a self-developed LLM model and Agent-Centric Index (AGI) system: https://www.deagent.ai/

Andrena (aka. DAWN) - Series A+ ($18.0M) | Affordable internet provider and developer of DAWN (decentralized autonomous wireless network), a protocol built on Solana designed to offer decentralized internet services: https://andrena.com/

Blockscout - Seed ($3.0M) | Open-source block explorer for all EVM-based chains: https://www.blockscout.com/

Nexio - Seed ($2.2M) | Parallelized Bitcoin rollup and Layer 2 network that leverages the Move virtual machine: https://x.com/buildnexio

Solayer - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Restaking network built natively on Solana: https://solayer.org/

LYNC - Seed ($1.5M) | Consumer and gaming focused Layer 2 network that leverages the Move technology stack: https://lync.world/

UniWorlds - Seed (Not Disclosed) | 3D sovereign personal content creation platform and virtual spaces on the Bitcoin Network: https://uniworlds.io/

Onchain Labs - Seed ($5.8M) | Blockchain consulting firm and services provider for enterprises as well as the developer of the OG Wallet: https://www.onchainlabs.ch/

Vessel - Seed ($10.0M) | Zero Knowledge (ZK) powered decentralized exchange and Layer 3 network for DeFi: https://vessel.finance/

Quantlytica - Private Sale ($1.1M) | AI-powered multi-chain liquidity distribution protocol: https://quantlytica.com/

TONX - Seed ($4.0M) | Development layer and tooling platform designed for the TON network and Telegram: https://tonx.ai/

Moonveil - Seed+ ($3.6M) | Game studio and developer of Astrark, an immersive tower defense strategy game: https://www.moonveil.gg/

375ai - Seed ($5.0M) | Developer of decentralized edge data intelligence network enabled by hardware to collect data and application for users to contribute data: https://www.375.ai/

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

Pentagon Games - Seed ($6.0M) | zkEVM chain game publisher powering XR metaverse through deep learning and Web3: https://pentagon.games/

Wirex Pay - Node Sale ($5.0M) | Decentralized payment network incubated by Wirex: https://www.wirexpaychain.com/

BasedVC - Seed ($2.0M) | Token powered, decentralized early stage venture investment platform: https://basedvc.fund/

U2U Network - Strategic (Not Disclosed) | Directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based Layer 1 network with EVM compatibility, designed for decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) applications: https://u2u.xyz/

Telverse - Seed ($1.0M) | Gaming infrastructure and development platform designed for Telegram and the TON network: https://www.televerse.xyz/

New Funds

No new funds announced this week.

🙌 Cool Resources

Stay on top of the latest global regulatory and enforcement actions facing the industry via Gibson Dunn Digital Assets Recent Updates

🐕 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.