Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 14 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (April 14-April 20), with a total funding amount of over US$286 million. The inflow of funds increased significantly compared with the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 6 investment and financing events, among which Resolv Labs, the DeFi protocol behind Resolv, announced the completion of a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Cyber.Fund and Maven11
- The DePIN track announced 1 investment and financing event. The DePIN project Solix DePIN has received $29.5 million in financing from the Eclip Foundation
- Web3+AI announced one investment and financing event. The decentralized AI platform ORO AI completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by a16z CSX and Delphi Ventures
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 5 investment and financing events, among which a16z announced another $55 million investment in LayerZero
- Other categories announced 1 investment and financing event. Auradine, a US Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer, completed a $153 million Series C financing, led by StepStone Group
DeFi
Resolv Labs Completes $10 Million Seed Round, Led by Cyber.Fund and Maven11
Resolv Labs, the company behind the DeFi protocol Resolv, announced the completion of a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Cyber.Fund and Maven11, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Susquehanna subsidiary SCB Limited, Arrington Capital, Gumi Cryptos, NoLimit Holdings, Robot Ventures, Animoca Ventures, etc. Resolv focuses on the yield-based stablecoin USR, which adopts a Delta-neutral strategy hierarchical structure, and coin holders can obtain stable returns. The current TVL of the protocol is $450 million, and the new funds will be used to expand BTC-related strategies and multi-chain deployment.
DeFi protocol Neutrl completes $5 million seed round of financing, led by STIX and Accomplice
DeFi protocol Neutrl has completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by STIX and Accomplice, with participation from Amber Group, SCB Limited, Figment Capital and Nascent. Neutrl launched the stablecoin NUSD, which purchases locked altcoins at a discount in the OTC market and hedges with perpetual contracts to achieve hedging returns. This strategy aims to popularize hedge fund-level arbitrage methods to mass investors, with a target market size of $10 billion.
Crypto investment startup Glider announced the completion of a $4 million financing led by a16z, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Pivot Global, Uniswap Ventures and GSR. Glider is committed to combining AI and DeFi to provide users with automated, non-custodial, personalized crypto asset allocation solutions. The product is still in the testing phase and is expected to be launched in the next few months. The company will also join a16z's crypto accelerator program in San Francisco.
Hyperion Completes Strategic Round of Financing, with OKX Ventures and Aptos Labs Joining
Decentralized trading platform Hyperion announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing, with OKX Ventures and Aptos Labs participating in the investment. This round of financing will accelerate the development of its core products, including the optimization of CLMM centralized liquidity market makers and strategy management tools VAULT, aiming to improve trading efficiency and user experience. It is reported that Hyperion focuses on the Aptos ecosystem and plans to solve the problem of liquidity dispersion and trading experience optimization through innovation, and expand the user scale. The funds will be used for technology research and development, ecosystem construction, and the launch of user incentive programs such as DRIPs points.
Treehouse Finance Completes New Round of Financing with a Valuation of US$400 Million
Treehouse Finance, which focuses on DeFi fixed income, has completed a round of strategic financing, with a fully diluted token valuation of $400 million. This round adopts a SAFT structure, and investors include well-known institutions such as MassMutual Ventures and industry figures such as Ethena and QCP. Treehouse is committed to creating a decentralized benchmark interest rate DOR and income assets tAssets, aiming to connect with the traditional $600 trillion fixed income market. The platform has attracted more than 30,000 wallets and 120,000 ETH deposits. The mainnet is expected to be launched in June.
Wintermute announces investment in lending protocol Euler Finance
Market maker Wintermute announced on the X platform that its investment institution Wintermute Ventures has invested in the DeFi lending agreement Euler Finance. The specific amount has not been disclosed yet.
DePIN
DePIN project Solix DePIN completes $29.5 million financing
DePIN project Solix DePIN has received $29.5 million in financing from the Eclip Foundation. The investment will accelerate the development of Solix's Model Context Protocol (MCP) technology, which enables intelligent bandwidth sharing without affecting the user's Internet experience. According to reports, Solix DePIN is a decentralized physical infrastructure network that enables users to share and monetize their excess bandwidth. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) at the core of Solix technology connects AI models with real-time contextual data on Internet usage, thereby enabling dynamic and intelligent decision-making on bandwidth allocation.
AI
Decentralized AI platform ORO AI announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) and Delphi Ventures, with participation from Ocular VC, Orange DAO, NEAR Protocol and 0G Labs. According to reports, ORO is a decentralized AI platform designed to unlock high-quality, private data for advanced AI models. ORO uses blockchain technology to promote secure and permissioned data sharing, enabling AI developers to train models on quality data sets while protecting data privacy.
Infrastructure & Tools
a16z announces another $55 million investment in LayerZero
Ali Yahya, general partner at a16z, announced on the X platform: "The company has invested an additional $55 million to purchase ZRO tokens of the cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero, with a 3-year lock-up period." a16z has previously invested in LayerZero, including its initial investment in March 2022 and a subsequent investment during LayerZero's Series B financing in April 2023. The two companies did not disclose the valuation of the financing round.
Optimum Completes $11 Million Seed Round, Led by 1kx
Infrastructure project Optimum announced the completion of a $11 million seed round of financing, led by 1kx, with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, CMT Digital, SNZ, Triton Capital, Big Brain, CMS, Longhash, NGC, Animoca, GSR, Caladan, Reforge, etc. The financing will be used for product development and ecological integration. Optimum is committed to building a decentralized high-performance memory infrastructure for blockchain. Based on random linear network coding (RLNC) technology, it has launched a high-performance node communication layer OptimumP2P and a decentralized memory product DeRAM, aiming to provide efficient data transmission and storage solutions for any blockchain network. OptimumP2P is about to go online on the test network, and is inviting public chain and node operators to participate in the test.
“Hyper-Casual Finance” Network Hana Network Announces $6 Million in Funding
Hana Network, which focuses on "hyper-casual finance", announced that it has completed a total of US$6 million in financing. In the recent No More CEX round of financing, core members of the L1/L2 project and some KOLs participated. In addition, Hanafuda announced that the second and third phases of its mainnet are expected to be launched in the next few months. According to reports, Hana Network claims to be incubated by Yzi Labs and supported by Hyperliquid. Hana Network launched Hana Gateway in January 2024, a trustless crypto asset up and down channel. It is currently focused on developing "hyper-casual finance" and realizing user-led distribution through social platforms, such as attention incentives, social rewards and P2P financing.
Rekord AG, a blockchain-based data verification platform, has completed a seed round of financing of 4.5 million Swiss francs (about 5.51 million U.S. dollars), and the investors are not disclosed. According to reports, Rekord AG is a data infrastructure company headquartered in Switzerland, focusing on blockchain-supported data verification and integrity solutions.
Embr Labs, a Meme-based application development team, completes $1.8 million in Pre-seed funding
Embr Labs, an application development team based on Meme in the Initia ecosystem, announced the completion of a $1.8 million pre-seed round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Robot Ventures and Lattice Fund, with participation from TempleDAO and individual investor Daryl Lau. It is reported that Embr.fun developed by Embr Labs is an application chain based on the Initia Interwoven Stack with Meme as the core, integrating a gamification experience, allowing users to publish, compete and grow their Meme assets in a competitive environment.
other
Crypto mining companies:
Auradine, a US Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer, has completed a $153 million Series C financing, of which $138 million is equity financing and $15 million is venture debt. This round was led by StepStone Group, with participation from Samsung, Qualcomm, Premji Invest and others. Auradine plans to expand its core mining machine business and the newly established AI infrastructure department AuraLinks AI, which currently has an annual revenue of $150 million and serves more than 40 data center customers.
Venture Capital Fund
Bloomberg: Galaxy Ventures fund has exceeded its $150 million fundraising target
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Ventures Fund I LP has exceeded its fundraising target of $150 million and will build a portfolio of about 30 investments. This fund focuses on investing in early-stage startups, especially in the fields of payment and stablecoins. It is expected to complete fundraising by the end of June, with a fundraising amount of between $175 million and $180 million. The limited partners of this new fund are mainly family offices and high-net-worth individuals. Galaxy itself has also invested in the fund. Galaxy recently obtained permission for a direct listing on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, and the transaction is expected to take place after a special shareholders meeting in May.
