Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 13 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (May 12-18); the total scale of funds exceeded US$92.5 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 the decentralized perpetual contract exchange Perpl completed a financing of US$9.25 million, led by Dragonfly;
- The Web3+AI field announced two investment and financing events. Among them, Antix, a platform focusing on hyper-realistic AI digital humans, announced the completion of a private financing of US$8.2 million;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced four investment and financing events, among which the Layer0 blockchain infrastructure platform Openverse Network completed a strategic financing of US$11 million, with investors including Castrum Capital;
- In other applications, four investment and financing events were announced. Venture capital firm a16z Crypto led the $7 million seed round of financing for blockchain ticketing platform KYD Labs.
DeFi
Perpl, a decentralized perpetual contract exchange, has completed a $9.25 million financing led by Dragonfly, with participation from Ergonia, Brevan Howard, Breed, L1D and CMS. Perpl plans to develop an on-chain central limit order book based on the Monad architecture. The test network is expected to be launched at the end of the year, and the main network will depend on the progress of the Monad main network. The project was established by American co-founders and moved to London due to regulatory issues.
TrendX receives $5.2 million in strategic investment from Animoca Brands and Cream Labs
TrendX, an on-chain smart trading platform, announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing of US$5.2 million, with investors including Animoca Brands and Cream Labs. After this round of financing, TrendX has raised a total of US$11.2 million, with support from 14 institutions in cutting-edge fields such as AI, DePIN and DeFi. The funds will be used to promote product innovation and global expansion, and deepen cooperation with investors in on-chain data analysis and intelligent model construction.
DeFi Strategy Platform XSY.fi Completes $5 Million Pre-A Round of Financing
DeFi strategy platform XSY.fi launched a beta version of the synthetic USD stablecoin Unity (UTY) on the Avalanche blockchain and announced the completion of a $5 million Pre-A round of financing, led by Protagonist Ventures and Borderless Capital, with participation from Paper Ventures, Chainview Capital, Blizzard the Avalanche Fund, and Sonic Boom Ventures. Users can mint UTY by staking AVAX, earning passive income while maintaining exposure to the original asset. UTY uses automated strategies to manage market risks without the need for active user operations. Ava Labs' Chief Business Officer said the product will enrich the DeFi tool portfolio of the Avalanche ecosystem. XSY simultaneously launched a limited-time points plan, where users can accumulate points through minting, providing liquidity, and other behaviors, which can be redeemed for governance rights in the future.
AI
Antix Completes $8.2 Million Private Funding, Plans to Put AI Digital Humans on the Blockchain
Antix, a platform focusing on hyper-realistic AI digital humans, announced the completion of a private financing of US$8.2 million, with the support of more than 10,000 community investors, and plans to introduce hyper-realistic AI digital humans to the blockchain. It is reported that Antix has launched a tokenized digital human and identity economy to protect and monetize digital content IP. Its AIGE engine can create emotionally rich digital humans from images and cast them into NFTs. The core functions of the platform are driven by $ANTIX tokens, and a beta version is planned to be launched in the summer of 2025.
Giza, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform based on smart contracts and web3 protocols, announced that it has completed a total of US$5.2 million in financing. As the infrastructure of Xenocognitive Finance, its investors include Base Ecosystem Fund, Echo, CoinFund, Re7 Capital, Stake Capital, ID Theory, CONTANGO, etc. According to reports, Giza is developing a trustless protocol that aims to decentralize machine learning reasoning calculations and provide security for the open economy of open source AI. It enables AI developers to generate zero-knowledge proofs, thereby ensuring the transparency and credibility of verifiable machine learning model deployments.
Infrastructure & Tools
Layer0 blockchain infrastructure platform Openverse Network recently announced the completion of a strategic financing of US$11 million, with investors including Castrum Capital, TB Ventures, DuckDAO and Asva Capital. This round of financing will accelerate its core protocol development and mainnet upgrades, supporting cross-chain communication, unified identity, timestamp and naming services and other functions. The Openverse mainnet TPS exceeds 300,000, supports multiple token standards such as VRC10/11/12, and is committed to building a programmable, efficient and secure global value Internet.
Turtle Club Completes $6.2 Million in Funding to Advance On-Chain Liquidity Distribution Agreement
Turtle Club, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, announced on May 12, 2025 that it had completed a $6.2 million seed round of financing to advance its on-chain liquidity distribution protocol. The financing was led by THEIA, with participation from SIG, Consensys, Laser Digital, and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin as angel investors. Since its launch in March 2024, Turtle Club has integrated 51 protocols, activated a total of more than $2.3 billion in liquidity, and registered 315,000 wallets.
Blockchain cloud computing company Nirvana Labs has completed a $6 million seed extension round of financing, led by Jump Crypto and Crucible Capital, with participation from RW3 Ventures, Castle Island and Hash3 VC, bringing its total financing to $11.8 million. The company provides computing services tailored for the encryption field. Unlike traditional cloud service providers that centralize computing resources, Nirvana uses bare metal infrastructure, with each server serving only one client. Nirvana has served infrastructure providers such as BitGo and Fireblocks, and protocol foundations such as Avalanche and Berachain. Nirvana also plans to serve as a front-end service to help organizations deploy on Internet filtering startup DoubleZero.
SpaceComputer Completes Pre-Seed Round Led by Primitive Ventures to Build Space Encryption System
SpaceComputer announced the completion of a Pre-Seed round of financing led by Primitive Ventures, with participation from Nascent, Tangent, Symbolic Capital, Public Works, Merkle Ventures and Star-Shield, and angel investors including Loi Luu, Sandeep Nailwal and Meltem Demirors. SpaceComputer is using satellites to build encryption systems that are resistant to physical damage and cyber attacks, and has launched its first product, ctRNG, which uses space entropy to generate true random numbers.
other
Bitcoin Strategy:
The Blockchain Group Closes Over €22 Million in Funding to Accelerate Its Bitcoin Funding Strategy
European listed company The Blockchain Group (ALTBG) completed two rounds of financing totaling more than 22 million euros within a week. On May 9, it raised 9.9 million euros through equity financing, with an issue price that was 61.7% higher than the 20-day average price. Investors included Tobam, Generali Ambition Solidaire, Jean-Marie Formigé, Quadrille Capital, EFG Bank, VP Bank, etc. On May 12, it issued 12.1 million euros of Bitcoin-denominated convertible bonds through its Luxembourg subsidiary, which was fully subscribed by Blockstream CEO Adam Back, with an issue price that was 30% higher than the first batch of conversion prices. The funds will be used to strengthen Bitcoin holdings and develop subsidiary businesses such as data intelligence and AI. As a core member of "Bitcoin For Corporates", the company explores Bitcoin-centered capital structure innovations, including Bitcoin-denominated bonds and hard asset reserve strategies.
Blockchain investment firm Coinsilium raises £1.25 million to launch Bitcoin financial strategy
Blockchain investment company Coinsilium Group announced the completion of £1.25 million of institutional financing and the simultaneous launch of a £250,000 retail fundraising plan to advance its Bitcoin reserve strategy. The private placement was priced at 3 pence per share, and the oversubscribed funds will be injected into its wholly-owned subsidiary Forza (Gibraltar) Limited as the operating entity. Malcolm Palle, the company's executive chairman, said that the financing will accelerate the implementation of the Bitcoin reserve plan. At the same time, Oak Securities was appointed as a joint broker to strengthen the capital market operation capabilities. The newly issued shares are expected to be listed on the Aquis Growth Market on May 22, and the total share capital will reach 274.7 million shares after completion. Board member James Van Straten emphasized that the company is fully focused on the Bitcoin reserve strategy, and the fundraising includes an arrangement to use 6.56 million ordinary shares to offset £196,800 in service fees.
Consumption:
a16z Crypto Leads $7 Million Seed Round in KYD Labs to Drive Blockchain Ticketing Innovation
Venture capital firm a16z Crypto led a $7 million seed round for blockchain ticketing platform KYD Labs. Built on Solana, KYD aims to empower artists and venues to control ticket sales, fan data and revenue, and solve the problem of revenue loss caused by secondary market circulation. It is said that after using the KYD system, the ticketing revenue of the well-known New York venue LPR increased by 30%. KYD plans to expand to more than 100 US venues by 2026, and launch two tokens, $KYD and $TIX, to strengthen the community and financial foundation.
Solana Ecosystem Ticketing Platform XP Completes $6.2 Million Seed Round Financing
XP, a ticketing platform based on Solana, has completed a $6.2 million seed round of financing, led by Blockchange, with participation from L1D and Reflexive. According to reports, the platform encrypts ticket codes into NFTs, and supports users to pay with USDC by connecting to encrypted wallets. Founder Mike Saunders revealed that the platform will soon launch a user-owned listing and resale function, and plans to provide fans with exclusive rewards and experiences through blockchain technology. Although the underlying platform uses Solana technology, the official website hardly mentions encryption elements, and the founder has not made a clear statement on whether to issue tokens.
