web3 movers and shakers
During the last two weeks, we identified roughly $120M in new money fundraise announcements for private blockchain startups. Regarding dry powder, one new fund was raised by Credibly Neutral to the tune of $5.5M.
Before we dig in, we’d like to share one notable story we found. We flag this story to remind the audience that fundraise headlines should always be taken with a grain of salt.
Singapore government-owned investment firm, Temasek, has denied making a $10M investment in Array, a developer of an algorithmic currency system based on smart contracts and artificial intelligence. A statement was issued by Temasek on May 2, stating that there is no relationship between the two firms, contradicting Array's claim that it had secured funding from the investment firm. The supposed funding round would have been Array's second, with the investment reportedly raising the firm's valuation above $100M.
When we compile this newsletter each week, we routinely come across fake raises across web3. We are dedicated to spotting and excluding these stories.
Turning back to new money raises, the largest announcement came from Swedish startup Goal. The team has raised $20M in a Series A funding round to continue developing its NFT-based soccer video game, which seeks to challenge traditional simulations of the sport such as those developed by EA Sports. The funding round was led by Seven Seven Six, the venture capital firm formed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and included participation from Northzone, Moonfire, and Cassius. Goals has raised a total of $39M to date, including a $15M seed round last year. The fresh investment will be used to expand the team from 50 to 75 and accelerate development of the game, which is currently in pre-alpha stage.
We had one new VC fund announcement, too. Crypto venture capital firm Credibly Neutral has raised $5.5M from a group of investors that includes the co-founders of the Solana and Polygon blockchains, as well as the investment firm of Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys. The firm was founded by Viktor Bunin, who leads the protocol operations team at Coinbase Cloud, and Lisa Cuesta Bunin, chief operating officer at Ethereum privacy startup Aztec Protocol. Credibly Neutral focuses on investments in projects that promote the decentralisation of finance, self-sovereignty, and privacy in the crypto industry.
The remaining deals are shared below. Our sources for curating these include several newsletters and Twitter feeds.
Crypto media outlet Blockworks has raised $12M in a funding round led by private equity firm 10T Holdings at a $135M post-money valuation. The capital will be used to help expand the outlet's research and data analytics offering, Blockworks Research. The new investment comes at a particularly difficult time for crypto-focused publications due to the extended bear market and a number of high-profile scandals that have rocked the industry. Blockworks Research offers a powerful investment platform that brings together data, analytics, research, governance, and real-time news to help financial institutions and deeply crypto-native investors make better decisions. Framework Ventures and Santiago Santos also participated in the funding round.
AlienSwap, an NFT marketplace, has successfully closed a $12M strategic funding round aimed at building a leading NFT trading layer. NEXT Leader Capital and C² Ventures led the funding round, with participation from OKX Ventures, which provided a strategic investment, as well as from Araceae Capital, BIP32 Venture, Hyper10n Capital, Eureka Trading, Mission Street Ventures, Phyrex, and other seed round investors. The funding will be used to further develop the AlienSwap platform and enhance its capabilities in the NFT trading space. AlienSwap aims to provide a seamless trading experience for NFTs and has positioned itself as a top player in the growing NFT marketplace.
ZkLink, an infrastructure layer that simplifies asset trading across blockchains, has raised $10M in a strategic funding round ahead of its mainnet launch in Q3. The funding round was backed by investors including Coinbase Ventures, the venture capital arm of crypto exchange Coinbase. ZkLink offers a zero-knowledge rollup-backed decentralized trading infrastructure that enables cross-chain asset transfers and trading with ease.
Non-fungible token (NFT) collection Pudgy Penguins has raised $9M in a seed funding round led by 1kx. The funding round comes after a leadership change that led to an increased focus on utilizing the intellectual property. Last year, the Pudgy Penguins project voted out its founders for allegedly draining treasury funds and failing to meet community goals. Entrepreneur Luca Schnetzler (Netz) bought the Pudgy Penguins rights for $2.5M in April 2022 and has since built out the brand, involving licensing deals and social media campaigns, pushing the NFTs to an all-time high floor price last December. Other investors in the funding round included Big Brain Holdings, Kronos Research, the founders of LayerZero Labs, Old Fashion Research, and CRIT Ventures.
Tangem, a provider of secure hardware wallet solutions, has successfully closed its latest investment round at $8M. The round was led by Web3 venture capital firm Shima Capital, with additional contributions from other investors.
Odsy Network, a layer 1 blockchain, has raised $7.5M to fund the development of decentralized crypto wallets. The funding round was led by Blockchange Ventures with participation from Rubik Ventures, Node Capital, and FalconX, among others. Odsy Foundation, a Zug, Switzerland-based organization promoting the network's adoption, aims to mitigate the requirement for users to have multiple wallets to access different networks and applications, removing an obstacle to wider adoption. Odsy's decentralized wallets (dWallets) provide access to different Web3 protocols and platforms through transferable signing mechanisms on the Odsy Network with the ability to sign transactions on practically any other blockchain. Odsy is valued at $250M following this funding round.
FARE Protocol has raised $6.2m in a seed round ahead of the launch of its ecosystem and native token on Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum later this year. The fundraise was led by Goat Capital, founded by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, and C Squared Ventures. FARE Protocol aims to create a decentralised platform that promotes long-term thinking for its users, enabling them to align incentives with their future selves and society's interests. The platform utilises a self-balancing incentive system that adapts to dynamic supply and demand conditions.
nChain is investing $4M in Transmira, a metaverse platform that uses augmented and virtual reality to bridge the physical and digital worlds. The platform is designed to offer immersive experiences to both brands and users, including highly realistic, city-scale digital twins. Transmira's blockchain functionality allows for secure and trusted transactions and exchanges of virtual goods in a virtual marketplace, which is intended to promote deeper user engagement and brand loyalty.
New York City-based Entendre Finance has raised $4M in seed funding for its automated end-to-end accounting and bookkeeping solution for Web3 businesses. Entendre Finance's platform provides automated accounting and bookkeeping services, servicing multiple blockchains and integrating with accounting platforms and Web3 applications. Its customer base currently includes Hedgey, Lava, Anima, and more.
Vibe, a platform that offers a no-code NFT-to-product toolset that enables creatives to add utility and value to their tokens, has secured $4M in a seed round. The round was backed by investors including the venture capital arm of Web3 infrastructure firm Alchemy, Aglaé Ventures, and K-Pop artist Psy's music label P Nation, among others. Vibe's platform is designed to make it easier for creators to turn their NFTs into digital products by providing management and customization tools. With the funding raised, Vibe plans to develop additional tools and features to further enhance the value of NFTs and support the adoption of NFTs by creators and their fans.
Artifact Labs, a startup spun off from Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper, has raised $3.25M in its first external funding round. The company, which creates non-fungible token (NFT) versions of historical artifacts, will use the seed funding to boost its technical headcount and develop a decentralized NFT marketplace. Artifact has already partnered with cultural institutions such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Salvage the RMS Titanic Inc. to create on-chain versions of their collections. The funding round was led by Blue Pool Capital, a Hong Kong-based family office, with participation from Animoca Ventures.
Portals, a platform that simplifies Web3 by enabling anyone to bundle complex DeFi actions, has successfully closed a $2M seed funding round. The round was led by Lightshift Capital, with participation from Poolside, Basement Labs, LongHash Ventures, Daedalus Angels, Mechanism Capital, and a range of leading angels, including 0xMaki, Mathieu Baril, Owl.eth, Emile Dubie, Rudy Kadoch, David Dias, and others. Portals' API is built by Web3 natives who understand the challenges and complexity of this technology, and the team has focused on making the integration process as seamless as possible for any level of developer. Lightshift has contributed its engineering teams to build an API integration boilerplate that developers can use to easily integrate Portals into their products.
Nolus, an application on the Cosmos blockchain, has secured $2.5M in pre-seed and seed funding to address inefficiencies in DeFi money markets. The funding round was valued at $20M and was backed by investors including Dorahacks, Everstake, Cogitent Ventures, Token Metrics Ventures, and Autonomy Capital, among others. The funds raised are expected to support the development of the technological infrastructure of the platform and expand its reach within the Cosmos ecosystem. Nolus aims to offer a cross-chain presence in DeFi to enable interoperability between different blockchains. The platform's advisory board members, including Zaki Manian, Strangelove, and Shane Molidor, will support the team in achieving this goal.
Artizen, a Web3 culture-focused crowdfunding platform, has raised $2.2M in a funding round led by ConsenSys Mesh, Animoca Brands, and Protocol Labs. The round also saw participation from Dan Hill of Blank Street Coffee, Matt Condon of PleasrDAO, and Juan Benet, Founder and CEO of Protocol Labs, among others. Creators use the platform to sell unique blockchain-based "Artifacts" to fund projects at the intersection of art, technology, science, and design. The proceeds will be used to expand services and evaluate new partnerships opportunities. The community members curate all projects featured on the website and the season's project with the most sold Artifacts receives a cash prize.
OpenTrade, a provider of structured financial products for Web3 treasuries and businesses, has raised just over $1.5M in a funding round led by Sino Global Capital, a crypto-native venture capital firm. Other investors in the round included Circle Ventures, Kronos Research, Kyber Ventures, Polygon Ventures, and Outlier Ventures. The funding raised will be used to scale OpenTrade's operations in preparation for its launch in the second half of this year. Its initial product offerings will include liquidity pools for U.S. Treasury bills, investment-grade commercial paper, and investment-grade supply chain financing.
SuiPad raised $1.155M for its SUI-focued token launchpad.
Cetus, a decentralised exchange (DEX) and concentrated liquidity protocol built on Sui and Aptos, has successfully completed its seed round of funding. The round was led by OKX Ventures and Kucoin Ventures, with participation from other prominent institutions in the industry, including Comma3 Ventures, NGC Ventures, Animoca Ventures, and IDG Capital, among others. Cetus aims to create an underlying liquidity network that enables easy trading of assets for Sui and Aptos users by offering superior liquidity efficiency and the best trading experience to DeFi users through its concentrated liquidity protocol.
Aki Protocol, a data-driven influencer network in the Web3 space, has raised funds in a seed round led by Emoote and Mask Network, two funds owned by Japan's leading public entertainment conglomerate Akatsuki. The seed round, which is valued at $40m, also sees investment from MZ Web3 Fund, Incuba Alpha, Meteorite Labs, CatcherVC, Alchemy Pay, Futurism Labs, and Oxbull, as well as angel investors from SynFutures, CyberConnect, DODO, and Hooga Gaming. Aki Protocol aims to leverage data-driven technology to provide more engaging, effective marketing solutions to businesses through harnessing the power of influencers in the decentralised Web3 universe.