Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 13 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (April 28-May 4); the total amount of funds exceeded US$137 million, and the inflow of funds decreased compared with the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced three investment and financing events, among which blockchain financial company Dinari completed a $12.7 million Series A financing, led by Hack VC and others;
- The Web3+AI field announced two investment and financing events, among which Camp Network completed a $25 million Series A financing, led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 6 investment and financing events, among which the privacy blockchain Miden completed a $25 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto, Hack VC, and 1kx;
- In other applications, one investment and financing event was announced. Web3 entertainment company YOAKE entertainment completed a financing of approximately US$1.25 million.
- Centralized finance announced one investment and financing event. Blockchain-driven payment startup Next Generation announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing.
DeFi
Blockchain finance company Dinari announced the completion of a $12.7 million Series A round of financing, led by Hack VC and Blockchange Ventures, with participation from VanEck Ventures, F-Prime and Avalanche Fund. The company's total financing has reached $22.65 million, with a valuation of $40.15 million in 2024. According to Pitchbook data, Dinari's valuation in 2024 is $40.15 million. The current valuation is unclear, but the company said it has achieved profitability, but declined to disclose the specific amount.
Dinari focuses on providing U.S. stock investment services to overseas investors, and issues tokens representing U.S. stock ownership through blockchain technology. Its API service has been connected to many financial technology platforms, and users can purchase tokens corresponding to stocks of companies such as Apple. Dinari will directly purchase and hold the corresponding stocks in the U.S. stock market to ensure 100% asset endorsement.
Pencil Finance, the RWA protocol for education finance (EduFi), announced the completion of a $10 million liquidity pool financing supported by Animoca Brands and Open Campus, which aims to support Pencil Finance's first batch of on-chain education loans and debt financing for education companies. The funds have been deployed in Pencil Finance's liquidity pool on the Open Campus EDU Chain. Pencil Finance will work with traditional education loan companies to bring education loans in Southeast Asia and the United States on-chain, opening up a new asset class for on-chain investors. At the same time, Pencil Finance helps reduce interest rates on education loans by providing traditional education loan companies with on-chain interest-bearing opportunities.
Stablecoin startup Zar raises $7 million, led by Dragonfly, a16z and VanEck
Stablecoin project Zar announced that it has completed a $7 million financing, with investors including Dragonfly Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, VanEck Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures and Solana co-founders. Zar was founded by Brandon Timinsky and Sebastian Scholl in 2024, aiming to enable "corner stores" around the world to support cash-for-stablecoin transactions. The platform has not yet been opened, but about 100,000 users have queued up to register, and 7,000 stores have expressed their willingness to cooperate, covering 20 countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Zar plans to officially launch this summer.
AI
Camp Network Completes $25 Million Series A Funding, Led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital
Camp Network, a blockchain project focusing on AI copyright profit sharing, announced the completion of a $25 million Series A financing round, led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital, with participation from OKX, Lattice and Paper Ventures, with a valuation of up to $400 million. Camp Network is committed to building an on-chain storage and licensing platform for content creators and plans to launch cryptocurrency this year. Co-founder Murthy said that as AI companies gradually standardize the use of data, blockchain can become an important tool for verifying copyright compliance.
The decentralized AI project Gata announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing. This round was participated by YZi Labs, IDG Blockchain, Maelstrom Fund, Manifold Trading, Gate Ventures, Formless Capital, Anti Capital, MH Ventures, V3V Ventures, 071 Labs and Echo. According to reports, Gata focuses on developing decentralized large-model reasoning, training and data technologies to enable decentralized infrastructure to participate in and support the global AI economy. Gata launched the DataAgent platform, which uses the computing power resources contributed by global users to automatically generate the data required for AI training through AI, aiming to replace the traditional manual data labeling method.
Infrastructure & Tools
Miden, a privacy blockchain project co-founded by a former Meta engineer, announced the completion of a $25 million seed round of financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz's crypto department, Hack VC, and 1kx, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, and several crypto angel investors. Polygon Labs did not invest directly, but incubated Miden and reached an agreement to distribute approximately 10% of Miden's future tokens to Polygon token holders. Miden focuses on achieving transaction privacy through zero-knowledge proofs, while taking into account the performance and decentralization of blockchain.
Ika, a parallel MPC network, announced that it has received strategic investment from the Sui Foundation. Since then, Ika has received more than $21 million in financing, and its highest valuation in the private placement phase has reached $600 million in FDV, and has received support from dozens of institutions in the Web3 field, including the Sui Foundation, DCG, Big Brain Holdings, Blockchange, Node Capital, Amplify Partners, Liquid2 Ventures, FalconX, etc. According to reports, Ika is a parallel MPC (multi-party computing) network that will soon be launched on the Sui blockchain.
Unto Labs raises $14.4 million to develop new RISC-V-based blockchain
Unto Labs announced the completion of a $14.4 million financing led by Framework Ventures and Electric Capital, with a valuation of $140 million. Unto is developing its own blockchain and self-developed virtual machine ThruVM, based on the RISC-V architecture, aiming to improve compatibility with traditional hardware and lower the entry threshold for non-crypto developers. The funds will be used to expand the team size and accelerate product development.
Terminal 3, a Hong Kong Web3 startup, has completed an $8 million seed round of financing, led by Illuminate Financial and CMCC Titan Fund, with participation from Animoca Brands, Progression Fund, IDG Blockchain, Cherubic Ventures, 500 Global, Consensys Mesh, Hard Yaka and BlackPine. The decentralized identity and data privacy protocol developed by the company has served more than 8 million users, and the new funds will be used to launch enterprise-level solutions before the end of the year. Gary Liu, co-founder and CEO of Terminal 3, said that its platform combines blockchain and zero-knowledge proof technology to provide secure data storage solutions for scenarios such as banks, government credentials and AI agents. Investor Illuminate Financial pointed out that verifiable digital identity is a key infrastructure to promote institutional adoption of crypto assets.
Decentralized high-precision map protocol ROVR Network completes $2.6 million seed round financing
The decentralized high-precision map protocol ROVR Network has completed a $2.6 million seed round of financing, led by Borderless Capital and GEODNET, with participation from IoTeX and other institutions. The project combines LiDAR laser radar with real-time dynamic positioning technology (RTK) to provide the autonomous driving industry with an open source map data solution with centimeter-level accuracy. ROVR founder Guang Ling said that this round of funds will be used for global hardware deployment and community data collection. The project has simultaneously launched the issuance of the native token ROVR, which is based on the Solana chain and adopts a deflationary model - data sales revenue will automatically trigger the token destruction mechanism. ROVR and GEODNET will set up a joint office in Silicon Valley to integrate the technical resources of both parties in the fields of spatial positioning and 3D modeling.
Web3 infrastructure project aZen completes $1.2 million seed round led by Waterdrip Capital
Web3 infrastructure project aZen announced the completion of a $1.2 million seed round of financing, led by Waterdrip Capital, with participation from DWF Ventures, Rootz Labs, Mindfulness Capital, Attention Ventures, Quantum Leap Lab, etc. In addition, aZen Holdings also received a $40 million equity investment from the UAE Royal Front LLC to promote long-term expansion and ecosystem development. The new funds will support its construction of a decentralized AI-native computing infrastructure.
other
Web3 entertainment company YOAKE entertainment completes financing of approximately US$1.25 million
Web3 entertainment company YOAKE Entertainment announced that it has completed 180 million yen (about 1.25 million US dollars) in financing through private token sales and convertible corporate bonds. Next Web Capital served as the lead underwriter for this round of financing, and participating investors included Bitbank Ventures, Credit Scend, Hakuhodo KEY3, Taisu Ventures, X2Y2, etc. The financing funds will be used for the development of the next-generation entertainment platform and the production of global IP content.
According to reports, YOAKE was founded in February 2024 and was jointly funded by Twin Planet, Asobi System, W TOKYO, Y&N Brothers and other companies. The board of directors includes well-known producer Yasushi Akimoto and Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe. YOAKE focuses on the blockchainization of entertainment IPs and recently announced that it will launch the official NFT series of the popular Japanese anime "The Seven Deadly Sins" and use the blockchain "Soneium" jointly developed by Sony Group and Startale Group.
Centralized Finance
Blockchain-powered payments company Next Generation completes $5 million seed round
Blockchain-driven payment startup Next Generation announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with participation from two Cypriot companies, an Austrian enterprise and an international investor consortium. The specific investor information has not been disclosed. This round of financing will accelerate the launch of the company's B2B payment ecosystem, which aims to connect traditional finance and digital finance through its proprietary MiCA-compliant, euro-pegged stablecoin.
Venture Capital Fund
Crypto venture capital firm dao5 completes $222 million second fund raising
The crypto venture capital firm dao5 announced the completion of the fundraising of the second phase of the fund of US$222 million, with the main investors being family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The firm was founded in 2022 by Tekin Salimi, a former Polychain investment partner and corporate lawyer. Its first phase of US$125 million has been fully invested in projects such as Berachain and Bittensor, and its current DPI (return on paid-in capital) has reached 1 times. The new fund will focus on institutional applications such as stablecoins and asset tokenization, and plans to invest in 15-20 early projects. Salimi has participated in major crypto project investments such as Avalanche, and his first fund LP and angel investor George Lambeth will be promoted to general partner.
