Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 11 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (July 14-20); the total scale of funds exceeded US$107 million; in addition, the total amount of financing for listed companies' crypto asset reserves exceeded US$635 million. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced one investment and financing event. Spiko, a tokenized money market fund platform, completed a $22 million Series A financing round led by Index Ventures.
- The Web3 game track announced two investment and financing events, among which the Web3 fantasy football game Football.Fun completed a $2 million financing;
- The Web3+AI track announced one investment and financing event. XerpaAI completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by UFLY Capital.
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 5 investment and financing events, among which the decentralized messaging protocol XMTP completed a $20 million Series B financing, led by a16z crypto and others;
- In terms of other applications , one investment and financing event was announced. The blockchain-based travel platform Blockskye completed a US$15.8 million Series C financing, led by Blockchange.
- The centralized financial sector announced one investment and financing event. Dakota, a stablecoin bank founded by former Coinbase executives, completed a $12.5 million Series A financing round led by CoinFund.
DeFi
Spiko, a tokenized money market fund platform, announced the completion of a $22 million Series A financing round, led by Index Ventures, with participation from institutions such as White Star Frst, Rerail, Bpifrance and Blockwall, as well as angel investors such as Revolut co-founder Nikolay Storonsky, Kyriba founder Jean-Luc Robert, Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, Wise CTO Harsh Sinha, and Blackstone Group co-chief investment officer Lionel Assant.
Spiko focuses on providing tokenized money market fund services to European companies, allowing users to earn daily returns by investing in low-risk assets such as Eurozone and US Treasury bonds. The platform uses blockchain technologies such as Ethereum and Arbitrum, and has currently processed more than $900 million in liquidity. The company plans to cooperate with institutions such as Memo Bank, aiming to exceed $1 billion in asset management by 2025.
Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has completed the acquisition of crypto social trading platform Pocket Protector, which is its first external acquisition. The transaction was completed in the form of a combination of cash + DYDX tokens, and the specific amount was not disclosed. The two co-founders of Pocket Protector will join dYdX as president and head of growth respectively, and the Telegram trading robot (including copy trading function) and the 9-person technical team they developed will be incorporated into dYdX. Pocket Protector was founded last year and has raised $7 million from investors such as Electric Capital and Dragonfly.
(Not included in this issue's financing weekly report statistics)
Web3 Games
Web3 fantasy football game Football.Fun raises $2 million
Web3 fantasy football game Football.Fun announced the completion of a $2 million financing, led by 6th Man Ventures (6MV), with participation from Devmons, Zee Prime Capital, Sfermion and The Operating Group. According to reports, Football.Fun is a Web3 fantasy football platform where player cards can be traded like meme coins. Users can form teams through player card packs, participate in tournaments, and trade player shares through a dynamic market based on AMM.
Global mini-game platform PlaysOut receives strategic investment from OKX Ventures
PlaysOut, a global mini-game platform, has completed a new round of strategic financing from OKX Ventures' Aptos Ecosystem Fund. This round of financing will be mainly used to promote the in-depth implementation of the "Mini-Game 2.0" model in technology and ecology. PlaysOut is a global mini-game infrastructure and distribution platform that aims to embed modular game systems into super applications. It will build a bridge between web2 and web3 through mini-games to achieve seamless monetization, user growth, and cross-ecological expansion.
AI
XerpaAI Completes $6 Million Seed Round, Led by UFLY Capital
XerpaAI, an artificial intelligence growth platform, announced the completion of a $6 million seed round led by UFLY Capital. This round of funds will be used for product innovation, international expansion and strategic recruitment. XerpaAI focuses on AI and social networks, and is committed to improving user acquisition, brand influence and distribution efficiency for innovative companies in the Web3 and AI fields. Currently, XerpaAI has operations teams in Silicon Valley, Tokyo and Singapore, and has in-depth cooperation with important ecological partners in the blockchain and AI industries.
Infrastructure & Tools
Ephemera, the developer of the decentralized messaging protocol XMTP, has completed a $20 million Series B financing round led by Union Square Ventures, a16z crypto and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Offline Ventures, Sound Ventures and Distributed Global. After this round of financing, Ephemera's equity valuation is $300 million, while the broader network covering the XMTP protocol that will issue tokens is valued at $750 million.
The XMTP protocol has now been integrated into Coinbase's newly launched Base application, upgrading from an optional feature to core infrastructure. The protocol provides end-to-end encrypted communication services and supports secure interactions between wallet addresses. The test network was launched in February this year. Ephemera said it will expand the team size to promote the launch of the protocol mainnet and ecological construction. USV partner Fred Wilson will join its board of directors.
Privacy financial protocol AI Cross Matrix completes $12 million seed round of financing
Privacy financial protocol AI Cross Matrix (ACM) has completed a $12 million seed round of financing, with participation from Asva Capital, Genesis Capital, BuzzBridge Capital (BZB), Avalon Wealth Club, and M2M Capital. According to reports, ACM uses ZKP (zero-knowledge proof), ring signatures, and AI-based routing obfuscation technology to build an anti-tracking cross-chain asset transfer infrastructure.
Crypto infrastructure company Function (formerly Ignition) has completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from Antalpha and Mantle. In addition to investing, Galaxy Digital will also participate in FBTC's core businesses such as liquidity provision and governance framework design. The company is committed to developing institutional-level yield solutions for Bitcoin. Function's core product FBTC is a fully-reserved, composable Bitcoin derivative asset with a current total locked value (TVL) of $1.5 billion. The product allows institutional users to configure Bitcoin to yield scenarios while maintaining custody control and 1:1 asset endorsement.
Web3 smart layer W3.io completes $7 million seed round led by Blockchange Ventures
Web3 smart layer W3.io announced the completion of a $7 million seed round of financing, led by Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Framework Ventures, Arrington Capital and other institutions. The alliance is building a programmable intelligent automation network Prodigy Network, which aims to lower the threshold for enterprises to use blockchain technology. The CEO of W3.io said that the project is committed to developing plug-and-play business solutions covering global micropayments, mortgages and other scenarios.
Stablecoin payment and embedded financial service platform KUN announced the completion of its Series A financing, with investors including BAI Capital, GSR Ventures, a Hong Kong-listed company and Eternium Global. Since its establishment 20 months ago, KUN has raised more than US$50 million in total financing.
other
Consumption:
Blockskye, a blockchain-based travel platform, announced the completion of a $15.8 million Series C financing round, led by Blockchange, with participation from United Airlines Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, KSV Global, Lasagna, Litquidity Ventures, Longbrook Ventures, and TFJ Capital. This round of financing will be used to expand into the European, Latin American and Asian markets, and to develop real-time payment products based on stablecoins. Blockskye uses blockchain technology to directly connect with airlines and other suppliers, helping corporate clients such as PwC reduce travel costs. The company claims that its platform can reduce travel expenses by 14.5% and achieve 84% savings in agency fees. The current team size is more than 40 people, and plans to add 30 new technical and sales positions.
Crypto asset reserves: ( not included in this period's financing weekly statistics )
Nasdaq-listed Bit Origin (NASDAQ: BTOG) announced that it has reached an agreement with several qualified investors to start the DOGE treasury reserve, with a total financing of up to US$500 million, including US$400 million in equity financing and US$100 million in convertible bond financing. The company plans to hold DOGE as a core asset for a long time and achieve long-term value enhancement through "increase in the amount of coins held per share". The company also plans to explore new businesses such as payment applications, miner services, and ecological construction around DOGE. At present, the company has completed the first convertible bond financing of US$15 million, which will be used for the first batch of DOGE purchases.
Construction services company OFA Group (Nasdaq: OFAL) has secured a $100 million (expandable to $200 million) equity financing facility and will launch a cryptocurrency reserve focused on Bitcoin, SOL and SUI in partnership with Bitwise.
Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital (MARA) led a $20 million equity financing in digital asset management company Two Prime, with participation from Susquehanna Crypto. MARA also announced that it would increase its Bitcoin position entrusted to Two Prime from 500 to 2,000, which is worth about $234 million at current market prices.
Two Prime is a registered investment advisor with the US SEC, with $1.75 billion in assets under management. Its income strategy focuses on institutional-level risk management. The company's lending business was recently rated by Galaxy Research as the largest centralized financial lending platform in the United States. MARA's chief financial officer said that the increase in holdings is aimed at transforming Bitcoin from a passive holding asset to an active income-generating tool.
Thai listed company DV8 completes financing of approximately US$7.4 million
DV8, a Thai listed company, announced the completion of its first round of financing, with a total of 241 million baht (about 7.4 million US dollars). DV8 is committed to becoming the first "cryptocurrency treasury company" in Southeast Asia. Its strategic direction draws on MicroStrategy and Japan's Metaplanet, and through the continuous increase of Bitcoin holdings, the company's crypto asset value per share is increased.
BTC Digital Ltd. (BTCT) announced a strategic transformation to focus on Ethereum as its core digital asset and no longer hold Bitcoin. As part of this transformation, the blockchain technology company completed a $6 million round of financing and increased its ETH position by $1 million. The company plans to convert all existing and future Bitcoin to Ethereum to build a long-term and efficient on-chain asset pool. Its goal is to increase the total ETH reserves to tens of millions of dollars by the end of the year. BTCT also plans to start ETH staking, obtain network rewards and reinvest to promote reserve growth, while participating in decentralized financial protocols, real-world asset projects and Ethereum stablecoin projects. With this transformation, BTCT will transform from a mining-dominated enterprise to a production asset-dominated digital asset operator, using ETH to develop multiple infrastructures.
LQWD Technologies Completes Private Funding, Plans to Use $2.3 Million CAD to Purchase Bitcoin
Canadian Bitcoin Lightning Network company LQWD Technologies (TSXV: LQWD; OTCQX: LQWDF) announced the completion of the previously disclosed non-brokered private placement, selling 560,975 common shares, raising a total of approximately 2.3 million Canadian dollars (approximately 1.68 million US dollars). The company plans to use the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin as an operating asset for its expansion of Lightning Network service business and for general corporate purposes.
Centralized Finance
Dakota, a stablecoin bank founded by former Coinbase executive Ryan Bozarth, has completed a $12.5 million Series A financing round led by CoinFund, with participation from 6th Man Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and Triton Ventures under Kraken. Dakota uses stablecoins to transfer funds and provides bank account-like services to businesses and individuals. Its business model combines traditional banking functions with blockchain technology, mainly serving overseas corporate users in non-crypto fields. The platform has currently processed $1.6 billion in transactions and is expected to reach $4 billion by the end of 2025. Although it does not hold a banking license, the company has registered as a money service business in the United States and Europe.
