Financing Weekly | 19 public financing incidents; Web3 wallet platform Galaxy Finance completed $30 million in Series B financing, Hong Kong investment fund BlackPine and others participated in the investment

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 19 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (6.19-6.25), with a total capital scale of about 150 million US dollars, which has increased compared with the previous week. The overview is as follows:

• DeFi announced 5 investment and financing events, among which DeFi infrastructure provider Maverick Protocol raised a strategic round of $9 million, led by Founders Fund;
• Chain Game Track announced 2 investment and financing, of which Anichess, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, completed a seed round of financing of 1.5 million US dollars, and GameFi Ventures and others participated in the investment;
• NFT and Metaverse announced 2 financings, among which DREST, a fashionable metaverse game company, announced the completion of 15 million pounds of financing, and the investor information has not yet been disclosed;
• Infrastructure and Tools The track announced 6 financings, among which the smart contract infrastructure company Neutron completed a financing of 10 million US dollars, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund;
• Other Web3/Crypto-related projects announced 1 funding round, Arkon Energy, a Bitcoin mining startup using renewable electricity, raised $26M from Sandton Capital Partners;
• Centralized Finance has announced 3 financings, among which Metatime, a Turkish crypto exchange, has completed $25 million in financing so far, with investors from Turkey, Denmark and Germany.


DeFi

DeFi protocol Maverick completed $9 million in financing, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund

DeFi infrastructure provider Maverick Protocol raised a $9 million strategic round of funding. The round was led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, with participation from Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures and Apollo Crypto. Maverick has also launched a liquidity incentive tool 'Boosted Positions (BP)'. In March 2023, Maverick Protocol launched its DEX product on the Ethereum mainnet. With its first dynamic distribution AMM as the core technology, it provides liquidity providers (LP) with tools to achieve higher capital efficiency. At the same time, Maverick has also integrated with leading LST (Liquid Staking Token) projects such as Lido, Frax, Liquity, cbETH, Rocket Pool and Swell.

Institutional cryptocurrency staking platform Northstake completes approximately $3 million in financing

Northstake, an institutional cryptocurrency staking platform, has raised €2.8 million (approximately $3 million), with participation from PreSeed Ventures, Morph Capital, The Aventures Fund, Funfair Ventures and Delta Blockchain Fund. The Copenhagen-based firm holds more than $80 million in crypto assets in 2022.

Earn Network, a liquid investment market, completed a seed round of financing of US$2.7 million

Earn Network, a community-driven liquidity investment market, announced the completion of a $2.7 million seed round of financing, led by Shima Capital, with participation from DFG, Jsquare, LD Capital, Cronos Labs, GTS Ventures, Bixin Ventures, ViaBTC Capital, Mars DAO, and Mirana Ventures . Earn Network was established in the second quarter of 2022. By providing a "no code" solution, anyone can use audited templates to create their own customized financial products, such as pledges or lending pools.

DEX platform Vertex Protocol received strategic investment from Wintermute Ventures

Vertex Protocol, an Arbitrum-based decentralized trading platform, announced that it has received a strategic investment from Wintermute Ventures. The specific amount has not yet been disclosed. Vertex Protocol stated that the combined spot and perpetual futures volume on the platform exceeded $1 billion in less than 2 months.

DeFi privacy infrastructure Portal Gate completes $1.1 million in seed round financing, led by Apollo Crypto

DeFi privacy infrastructure Portal Gate completed a $1.1 million seed round of financing, led by Apollo Crypto, with participation from UpsideDAO, Greythorn Asset Management, Comma3 Ventures, Gandel Invest, Rebase D. Ventures, Fork Ventures, and the founder of Ren Protocol. Portal Gate will accelerate the launch of the privacy pool on the main network, and plans to launch the main network in the third quarter.

Chain Games

Anichess, a chain game under Animoca Brands, has completed $1.5 million in financing

Anichess, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, completed a $1.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from GameFi Ventures, Coin Operated Group, Koda Capital, Bing Ventures, 708 Capital, and Asymmetry Capital. This round of financing will be used for team expansion and game development. Anichess is a community-driven, free-to-play decentralized chess game jointly developed by Animoca Brands and Play Magnus Group under Chess.com, with an Alpha release planned for Q1 2024.

Chain game Cat Paradise completes nearly US$1 million in seed round financing, and Mask Network participates in the investment

Cat Paradise, a chain game developed based on TON, has completed its seed round of financing. This round of financing raised nearly US$1 million at a valuation of US$15 million. Mask Network, Moon Capital and other institutions participated in the investment. The company will use the funds to improve existing on-chain technology, hire more skilled developers, and reach out to more customers. It is reported that Cat Paradise is a digital cat pet raising game developed by game developer Pluto Games.

NFT & Metaverse

Fashionable metaverse game company DREST completes £15 million financing

Trendy metaverse game company DREST announced the completion of 15 million pounds (approximately 19 million US dollars) in financing, and the investor information has not yet been disclosed. DREST integrates luxury fashion brands with Metaverse technology. Players can design branded digital clothing and participate in games on Metaverse Avatar. Participating audiences. Currently, DREST is cooperating with fashion brands including Breitling, Cartier, Fendi, Gucci, Prada, and Valentino. At this stage, DREST is exploring the development of games in the field of Web3 and lifestyle, and is expected to enter the research and development stage within the next 18 months.

Open Foodie completes USD 500,000 seed round financing, HashGlobal participates in the investment

The NFT project Open Foodie announced the completion of a $500,000 seed round of financing, with participation from HashGlobal, StarWin, Bitrise Capital, and Teraland. Open Foodie is a creative Web3 cartoon food manufacturing laboratory, aiming to combine Web2 and Web3 technologies to promote the future development of the food industry.

Infrastructure & Tools

Web3 wallet platform Galaxy Finance completes USD 30 million Series B financing, Singapore QCP Capital and others participated in the investment

Web3 wallet platform Galaxy Finance announced the completion of a US$30 million Series B round of financing, with Hong Kong investment fund BlackPine, Singaporean encryption investment institution QCP Capital, and American blockchain investment fund Tally Capital participating. The Web3 wallet built by Galaxy Finance can be used to store digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The company previously raised $8 million in Series A financing. The new funds will improve its products and expand its influence in the Southeast Asian market.

Smart contract infrastructure company Neutron completes $10 million financing, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund

Smart contract infrastructure company Neutron completed $10 million in financing, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund, with participation from Delphi Ventures, LongHash Ventures, Semantic Ventures, and Nomad Capital. Neutron, which launched its mainnet in May, is a cross-chain smart contract platform that uses Replicated Security (RS), the interchain security feature of the Cosmos ecosystem. Neutron is interoperable across 51 blockchains within the Cosmos network, which are connected via Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC).

AI-driven encrypted search engine Kaito completes $5.5 million in Series A funding, led by Superscrypt and Spartan

Kaito, an artificial intelligence-driven encrypted search engine, announced the completion of a US$5.5 million Series A funding round led by Temasek’s blockchain-focused early-stage venture capital firm Superscrypt and Spartan. Previously, in February 2023, Kaito announced a US$5.3 million seed round financing led by Dragonfly, with participation from Sequoia China and Jane Street. So far, the cumulative financing has exceeded US$10 million. The financing will be used to develop the industry's first encrypted search engine based on LLM (Large Language Model). The new encrypted search engine will integrate Discord and Telegram information, as well as data on the blockchain.

Web3 company Vantient completes financing of US$3.45 million, Cercano Management and others participate in the investment

According to DealStreetAsia, Vantient, a Singapore-registered Web3 customer relationship management (CRM) solution company, has completed US$3.45 million in financing. Cercano Management (formerly known as Vulcan Capital), Saison Capital, and AC Ventures participated in the investment. Vantient is mainly for enterprises and Web3 The project provides on-chain and off-chain customer data aggregation and analysis services to support companies in acquiring, attracting and retaining their users.

Shared sorter solution Radius completes $1.7 million in financing, led by Hashed

Radius, a shared sequencer solution, completed a $1.7 million Pre-Seed round led by Hashed, with participation from Superscrypt, Lambdaclass and Crypto.com. Radius prevents MEV from compromising users by using a shared sequencer with Pragmatic Verifiable Delayed Encryption (PVDE). Radius also recently announced a partnership with Saga, Rollup-as-a-Service, and joining the Celestia ecosystem.

Accenture makes strategic investment in Web3 infrastructure provider Parfin

Accenture announced that it has made a strategic investment in Web3 infrastructure provider Parfin through Accenture Ventu, and the specific terms of the investment have not yet been disclosed. Founded in 2019, Parfin is an infrastructure provider of digital asset custody, trading, tokenization, and management tools for Latin American financial institutions, and is currently developing Parchain, a permissioned blockchain technology designed to enable regulated entities to participate in DeFi and asset tokenization. In January 2023, Parfin completed a $15 million seed round of financing led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Alexia Ventures and others.

other

Australian bitcoin mining company Arkon Energy completes a new round of financing of US$26 million

Arkon Energy, a bitcoin mining startup that uses renewable electricity, is expanding into the United States with the acquisition of a data center site in Hannibal, Ohio. The company also raised $26 million in a new round of funding from Sandton Capital Partners. It is reported that the company operates a data center hosting bitcoin mining equipment. The data center in Ohio has a design capacity of 100 megawatts (MW), and it is expected that the company’s computing power will increase by 3.3 EH/s by the end of 2023.

Centralized Finance

Encryption exchange Metatime has received US$25 million in financing and plans to launch the ecological token MTC

The Turkish encryption exchange Metatime has completed financing of US$25 million so far, with investors from Turkey, Denmark and Germany. It also plans to list its ecosystem token Metatime Coin (MTC) on multiple crypto exchanges from June. It is reported that Metatime is a company integrating blockchain, product development and cryptocurrency. It has developed more than 70 products and created its own blockchain network MetaChain. According to previous news, in March this year, Metatime completed a seed round of financing of 11 million US dollars. Turkish investment firm Yildiz Tekno GSYO and several unnamed angel investors participated in the round.

Singapore encryption payment provider dtcpay completes $16.5 million financing

Singaporean encrypted payment provider dtcpay (formerly Digital Treasures Center) completed a US$16.5 million Pre-series A round of financing, led by Kwee Liong Tek, chairman of Singapore’s Pontiac Land, and former Carlyle Group (Carlyle Group) David Tung, managing director and partner, Jean-Marc Poullet, chairman of Burgess Asia, and Tham Sai Choy, former chairman of KPMG Singapore and Asia Pacific, participated in the round. Founded in 2019, dtcpay provides services such as account issuance, domestic transfer, cross-border transfer, merchant acquiring, electronic currency issuance and digital payment tokens. It provides payment processing for users transacting across fiat and digital currencies.

Digital asset platform EDX Markets completed a new round of financing, DV Crypto and GSR Markets participated in the investment

EDX Markets, a digital asset trading platform supported by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab, officially announced the launch of trading services and completed a new round of financing. Investors include Miami International Holdings, DV Crypto, GTS, GSR Markets LTD and HRT Technology. The firms join a coalition of founding investors including Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets SM, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital and Virtu Financial. The new funds will support EDX to continue to develop its trading platform and strengthen its market leadership. EDX will launch EDX Clearing later this year to clear trades matched on EDX Markets.

Venture capital institutions

UK VC Firm Illuminate Financial Raises $235M for Its Third Fund

London-based thesis-oriented British venture capital firm Illuminate Financial has raised $235 million for its third fund, with investors including Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Euroclear. JPMorgan Chase & Co. , Citi , Barclays Plc and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. also contributed capital to the new fund. Illuminate, founded nine years ago by TP ICAP Group Plc and former Deutsche Bank AG executive Mark Beeston, also has operations in New York and Singapore. It has backed 35 companies, including digital asset market infrastructure firm Copper, Blockdaemon, Baton's and institutional staking platform Kiln.