Last week, there were a total of 16 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market | Investment and Financing Weekly Report

According to Chain Catcher statistics, from February 15 to February 21, the blockchain industry experienced a total of 16 investment and financing events, mainly focused on the DeFi and NFT sectors. Investment institutions such as Genesis Block Ventures, The LAO, and NGC Capital were particularly active.

1. Web3 Privacy Product Mask Network Completes $3 Million New Round of Financing, Led by DCG

On February 16, Web3 privacy product Mask Network announced the completion of a new round of financing amounting to $3 million, led by DCG (Digital Currency Group). Participating investors include Fundamental Labs, Longling Investment, Animoca Brands, Moonwhale Ventures, among others; individual investors include Ele.me co-founder Wang Yuan, renowned science fiction writer Chen Qiufan, Max Webster, Qiao Wang, and Imran Khan.

Mask Network (formerly known as Maskbook) serves as a bridge to help users seamlessly transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, allowing users to send encrypted messages, cryptocurrencies, and even decentralized applications (such as DeFi, NFT, and DAO) on traditional social media platforms.

2. Charged Particles Completes $750,000 Pre-Seed Round Financing, Led by The LAO

On February 16, the protocol Charged Particles, which integrates DeFi and NFT, announced the completion of a $750,000 pre-seed round financing, led by The LAO. Other investors include ParaFi, CoinGecko, LongHash Ventures, among others. According to official disclosures, Charged Particles' angel round investors include Leighton Cusak (PoolTogether). Charged Particles will launch a new standard on February 17, allowing NFTs to perform more operations.

Charged Particles is a protocol that merges DeFi and NFT, enabling users to deposit primary assets (such as DAI) into their NFTs and convert them into yield-bearing assets (such as aDAI), effectively "locking" the principal and interest from the deposit assets into the NFT.

3. NFT Social Platform TryShowtime Completes Pre-Seed Round Financing, Led by Dragonfly Capital

On February 16, NFT social platform TryShowtime completed its pre-seed round financing, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Robot Ventures, Bollinger Investment Group, and other investment institutions. Angel investors include Meltem Demirors (Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares), Andrew Steinwold (Managing Partner of Polynexus Capital), among others.

TryShowtime is an NFT social platform founded by crypto entrepreneur Alex Masmej, who is also the founder of Rocket and a founding member of Marketing DAO and Stake Capital. TryShowtime aims to leverage the existing characteristics of NFTs to break the original state of NFTs as assets, using them as the foundation for any type of content.

4. Swiss Cryptocurrency Bank Sygnum Receives $10 Million Investment from Japan's SBI

On February 17, Swiss cryptocurrency bank Sygnum announced that it has received a $10 million lead investment from SBI Digital Asset Holdings, a subsidiary of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, during its ongoing strategic round of financing.

This round of financing will help Sygnum develop more clients from new markets in Europe and Asia. Sygnum stated that it has raised approximately $30 million in the past six months, and as of January this year, its assets under management have exceeded $500 million.

5. Blockchain.com Completes $120 Million Strategic Financing, with Participation from Google and Others

On February 17, cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com announced the completion of $120 million in strategic financing led by "macro investors," including Moore Strategic Ventures (Louis Bacon), Kyle Bass, Access Industries, Rovida Advisors, GV (Google Ventures), among others.

Since 2012, 28% of Bitcoin transactions have been conducted through Blockchain.com, amounting to billions in transaction volume.

6. DeFi Insurance Nexus Mutual Raises $2.7 Million, Led by Collider Ventures

On February 17, DeFi insurance Nexus Mutual raised $2.7 million, led by Collider Ventures, with participation from 1Confirmation, Blockchain Capital, Version One, Dialectic, and others.

Nexus Mutual is a decentralized insurance alternative that provides smart contract coverage. Smart contract insurance is not a traditional insurance contract; claims payments are implemented through economically incentivized digital tokens rather than a centralized, trust-based insurance company.

7. Crypto Art Platform Async Art Secures Over $2 Million in Funding

On February 18, crypto art platform Async Art secured over $2 million in seed round financing, with participating investors including Lemniscap, Galaxy Interactive, Signum Growth Capital, and others.

Async Art utilizes Ethereum tokenization to sell art collectibles, allowing the purchase of master copies and layers, which are tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain. By purchasing layers, users have the opportunity to influence the works of their favorite artists.

8. Radicle Completes $12 Million Financing Led by NFX and Galaxy Digital, Launches Governance Token RAD

On February 19, decentralized code collaboration protocol Radicle announced the completion of $12 million in financing, marking Radicle's third round of financing, led by NFX and Galaxy Digital, with participation from Placeholder, Electric, Parafi, Hypersphere, BlueYard, 1kx, and a series of angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant, Fred Ehrsam, among others.

Additionally, Radicle announced the launch of its governance token RAD, which will support a wide range of Ethereum-integrated functionalities for payments, public ownership of the Radicle network, collective governance, and long-term sustainability. Users holding RAD tokens can interact with Ethereum-based protocols without incurring fees, meaning token holders can avoid fees or enjoy certain fee discounts while participating in network governance.

9. Crypto Trading Platform Quadency Receives $100,000 Investment from Dash Investment Foundation

On February 18, the Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) invested $100,000 in the professional crypto trading and automation platform Quadency. This investment represents the Dash network and is part of Quadency's seed round financing, as well as a collaborative effort to connect Dash's FastPass technology to the exchange network. This partnership will enable Dash users to interact with FastPass exchange partners through a single tool.

Quadency provides a single, secure, and user-friendly experience for trading, managing, and analyzing digital assets across multiple trading platforms, including cross-platform trading, personalized dashboards, and real-time portfolio monitoring.

10. Polkadot Parachain Clover Finance Completes $3 Million Seed Round Financing

On February 19, Polkadot parachain Clover Finance announced the completion of $3 million in seed round financing, with investors including Polychain, Hypersphere, Bithumb Global, and Divergence Ventures. This round of financing will be used to develop bridging solutions between the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains, as well as planned bridging with the Bitcoin blockchain.

In addition to Clover Finance, teams currently developing cross-chain bridging from Ethereum to Polkadot include the Substrate-based project Snowfork and the Web3 infrastructure development team ChainSafe.

11. Pods Finance Announces Completion of Seed Round Financing Before August 2020, Investors Include Framework Ventures and The LAO

On February 19, DeFi options product Pods Finance published an official blog announcing the completion of a seed round financing before August 2020, with investors including Boost VC, Framework Ventures, P2P Capital, BitScale, Zeeprime, The LAO, and others. This round of financing will support the further growth of the protocol and ultimately provide simple hedging solutions for cryptocurrency users.

Pods Finance was formerly known as ohmydai, launched in November 2019, and is a decentralized, non-custodial American options protocol that allows users to buy and sell put or call options. Since Pods are American options and are physically settled, there are no fixed exercise time limits, significantly reducing potential risks from oracle (price anomalies) and liquidation systems (anomalies).

12. NFT Verification Platform Ethernity Chain Completes Strategic Round Financing and Plans to Publicly Issue Token ERN

On February 19, NFT verification platform Ethernity Chain announced the completion of a strategic round of financing, with investors including Black Edge Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Woodstock, and Genesis Block Ventures.

It has been reported that Ethernity Chain will issue the token ERN and plans to conduct a public sale.

13. Tokenization Protocol APYSwap Completes $1.8 Million Private Placement Financing

On February 19, tokenization protocol APYSwap announced the completion of $1.8 million in private placement financing, with investors including NGC Ventures, Asymm Ventures, Genesis Block Ventures, Kyros Ventures, Hillrise Capital, Astronaut Capital, Black Mamba Ventures, AngelOne, and Gestalt Capital, among others.

It has been reported that APYSwap also announced an upcoming IDO (Initial DEX Offering) for its native token.

14. Cross-Chain Perpetual Derivatives Protocol AntiMatter Completes $150,000 Seed Round Financing, Led by NGC

On February 20, cross-chain perpetual derivatives protocol AntiMatter announced the completion of $150,000 in seed round financing, led by NGC Ventures, with participation from Spark Digital and Monday Capital.

AntiMatter introduces a two-tier token (Polarized Token) concept, where an options product consists of two parts, namely call and put, which are always balanced, and their sum is always a constant. The AntiMatter application has not yet been launched. Contributors to the AntiMatter project include Jack Lu, founder of Bounce.Finance, and Robert Hu, founder of Helmet.Insure.

15. Bitcoin Brokerage River Financial Raises $17 Million

On February 20, Bitcoin brokerage River Financial raised $17.3 million in its recent equity sale, and additionally, River Financial plans to raise nearly $500,000 more, bringing the total fundraising amount to $17.8 million. Documents show that there are 34 investors behind River Financial, but their identities have not been disclosed.

River Financial, formerly known as Alto Financial, provides users with high-quality customer service and cutting-edge technical support, such as the Lightning Network.

16. Polkadot Ecosystem Oracle HazelWord Secures New Round of Financing

On February 21, HazelWord officially announced that it has received new investments from White Whale Capital, Canace Capital, Sich Ventures, AC Capital, CatcherVC, TODO BLOCK, and SSSnodes.

HazelWord's oracle provides a data prediction service based on event asset collateral, as well as a data correction mechanism based on factual verification. It aims to solve the fundamental problem of trusted data sources in blockchain through innovative mechanism design. Previously, HazelWord announced that it had secured seed round financing.