Last week, there were a total of 26 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market | Investment and Financing Weekly Report

According to incomplete statistics from ChainCatcher, from May 17 to May 23, there were a total of 26 public investment and financing events in the blockchain industry, among which 4 had financing scales exceeding 100 million, namely the German broker Trade Republic, blockchain lending startup Figure Technologies, blockchain gaming platform Forte, and cryptocurrency custody service provider Fireblocks. In terms of investment institutions, AU21 Capital, NGC Ventures, and LD Capital were the most active.

1. DeFi

1. Multi-chain decentralized structured market Skyrim Finance completes $2.1 million private placement financing

On May 17, the multi-chain decentralized structured market Skyrim Finance completed its first round of private placement financing of $2.1 million, with participation from AU21 Capital, Spark Digital Capital, X21, and others.

Skyrim Finance is a multi-chain decentralized structured financial market aimed at helping different investors achieve risk-adjusted returns through DeFi products with fixed interest rates and leveraged yields.

2. NEST LABS incubated synthetic asset project Parasset completes $2 million seed round financing

On May 17, the synthetic asset project Parasset incubated by NEST LABS announced the completion of $2 million in financing, with investors including Huobi Ventures, FBG Capital, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, 21DAO, AU21, LD Capital, Infinity Labs, YBB Foundation, and others.

Parasset is a synthetic asset protocol based on the decentralized price oracle protocol NEST Protocol, which has fully integrated with NEST v3.6. Parasset generates synthetic assets that have a 1:1 intrinsic value with the underlying assets, such as PUSD, PETH, PBTC, etc.

3. Layer 2 decentralized exchange DeversiFi completes $5 million DVF token financing, led by ParaFI

On May 18, DeversiFi completed $5 million in DVF token financing, accounting for 12.5% of the total issuance, led by ParaFI. This portion of tokens will be locked for the long term, and the funds will be used to expand the team, launch Layer 2, and initiate liquidity mining. Other strategic supporters in this round include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Defiance Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Longhash Ventures, Genblock, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Kain and Jordan (Synthetix), Stani (Aave), Mona (Enzyme), Jordan aka, and others.

DeversiFi is a high-speed, decentralized trading platform that allows traders to securely execute orders of any size directly from their private wallets.

4. Structured finance platform Structure Finance completes strategic round financing

On May 18, structured finance platform Structure Finance announced the completion of strategic round financing, with venture capital firms NGC Ventures, x21 Digital, 1010 Capital, BTX Capital, AscendEX, ARPA, and angel investors Roger Lim from NGC Ventures, Ryan Fang, COO of Ankr Network, participating. The amount of financing was not disclosed. Structure Finance stated that it will launch products such as "double one touch options" and "straddle options" after going live, continuously expanding the variety of products and enhancing cross-chain capabilities.

Structure Finance will prioritize launching on the BSC and Ethereum chains and will be compatible with Layer 2 scaling solutions, subsequently promoting integration with other public chains. Structure Finance aims to bring structured financial products to the cryptocurrency space and completed seed and private placement financing in May 2021.

5. Synthetic asset protocol Duet Protocol completes second round of financing, with participation from Suji, Cao Yin, and others

On May 20, the multi-chain synthetic asset protocol Duet Protocol, based on hybrid minting and algorithmic stability, announced its second batch of investors and partners, including AU21 Capital, Arcanum Capital, Paratone Capital, ARKN Ventures, Phoenix VC, Mask Network founder Suji Yan, and Digital Renaissance Foundation founder Cao Yin. These investors will also join Duet DAO. Additionally, Duet, along with LD Capital, will provide annual funding of $500,000 to the research organization Muse Museum.

Duet completed a Pre-Seed round financing led by the OmniLAB Foundation in mid-April (amount undisclosed) and raised $3 million in May.

6. BSC smart investment platform BSClaunch completes $800,000 strategic financing

On May 20, the smart investment platform BSClaunch based on Binance Smart Chain announced the completion of $800,000 in strategic financing, with investors including NGC Capital, AU21 Capital, X21 Digital, Exnetwork Capital, Magnus Capital, Blocksync Ventures, and others.

BSCLaunch is a smart investment platform based on Binance Smart Chain, aimed at enabling projects to raise funds in a decentralized environment and allowing users to invest safely, freely, and equally.

7. NEAR-based DeFi protocol Flux completes $10.3 million seed round financing, will become an oracle on NEAR

On May 21, the NEAR-based DeFi protocol Flux completed $10.3 million in seed round financing, led by Distributed Global, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, Uncorrelated Ventures, Figment Capital, IOSG Ventures, and others. Flux CEO Peter Mitchell stated that the funds will be used to promote DeFi development on NEAR, becoming an oracle with high-value protocols and data, and will be used to expand the team and attract talent.

8. MCDEX completes $7 million financing, MCDEX V3 will be deployed on Arbitrum mainnet on May 28

On May 21, the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform MCDEX (MCB) announced the completion of $7 million in financing led by Delphi Digital and Alameda Research, which includes a $1 million allocation from the MCDEX community. Other participating investment institutions include Multicoin Capital, Distributed Capital, DeFiance, NGC, IOSG, Zeuth, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Digital Renaissance Foundation, Mask Network, and individual investors Meltem Demirors, Wang Feng, and others.

All funds raised in this round will go into the MCDEX DAO treasury, primarily to provide liquidity after the V3 mainnet launch. Currently, MCDEX V3 has been launched on the Arbitrum (Layer 2) testnet, and V3 will be deployed on the Arbitrum mainnet on May 28, followed by an official release and user access.

9. Stablecoin trading market HaloDAO completes $3.5 million seed round financing, will initially support HKD, SGD, and IDR

On May 22, the decentralized trading market for stablecoins HaloDAO announced the completion of $3.5 million in seed round financing, led by Parataxis Capital, with participation from Genesis Block Ventures, NGC, CMS Holdings, and others.

HaloDAO was founded by former employees of ConsenSys and will focus on the Asian stablecoin market in addition to liquidity markets like the US dollar. After going live, it will initially support the HKD stablecoin TrueHKD, SGD stablecoin XSGD, and IDR stablecoin BIDR.

10. DeFi asset management platform Zapper completes $15 million Series A financing, led by Framework Ventures

On May 17, the DeFi asset management platform Zapper announced the completion of $15 million in Series A financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Sound Ventures, Mark Cuban, ParaFi Capital, and others.

Zapper stated that it plans to launch an app store for developers on the platform and develop a mobile app for Zapper. It currently has 150,000 monthly active users, and its recent total transaction volume has exceeded $3 billion.

II. NFT & Blockchain Games

11. NFT creation platform Corra.Finance receives investment from Immutable and founders of CoinMarketCap, and will start LDB

On May 17, the NFT creation platform Corra.Finance received investment from Immutable founders Robbie and James Ferguson, as well as an investment fund established by the founders of CoinMarketCap, Lasting.Capital, and plans to launch LDB on Balancer at 20:00 on May 17. Other investors include Cointelegraph China, K-Cent, Shima Capital, LVT Capital, BTA Ventures, with the financing amount not yet disclosed.

12. Flow-based NFT trading platform Tibles completes $1.14 million seed round financing, led by Dapper Labs

On May 20, the Flow-based NFT trading platform Tibles completed $1.14 million in seed round financing, led by Dapper Labs, with participation from Multicoin Capital, Warburg Serres Investments, CoinFund.

Tibles will officially launch later this year; it is a cross-program NFT trading platform that plans to launch separate applications for each entertainment brand.

13. NFT platform Curio completes new round of $7 million financing, with participation from Distributed Capital, Protocol Labs, Cabin VC

On May 20, Curio announced the completion of a new round of $7 million seed round financing, with investors including Fenbushi Capital, Kenetic Capital, Protocol Labs, Cabin VC, LongHash Ventures, Picus Capital, gumi Cryptos Capital, and former Global Music CEO Marc Geiger, and former Fox Entertainment executive Rich Battista.

Curio has established partnerships with several well-known collectible brands and content creators and has jointly released representative NFTs such as "American Gods," "Concrete Park," and "Pilgrim Scott vs. The World." Curio officially stated that this financing will be used for the development of its own and NFT-related functions. In the coming weeks, Curio will also launch the Curio Rewards program on the platform, allowing users to earn rewards through trading, airdrops, galleries, and holding collectibles.

14. Next-generation cross-chain NFT platform NFT STARS announces completion of $3.75 million strategic financing

On May 21, the next-generation cross-chain NFT platform NFT STARS announced the completion of $3.75 million in strategic financing, with investment institutions including Moonwhale Ventures, AU21 Capital, Point Three Ventures, ZBS Capital, Blockhunter Capital, Newave Capital, Spark Capital, Samurai, and 77 Venture Capital.

The NFT STARS project is a next-generation cross-chain NFT platform with innovative and original features. NFT STARS aims to use AR layers to return to the state of the NFT gaming market, allowing people to create their own collection rooms and galleries.

15. Polkadot ecosystem NFT public chain Unique Network completes $4.3 million financing, led by Outlier Ventures

On May 21, Unique Network announced the completion of $4.3 million in financing. This round of financing was led by Outlier Ventures, with participation from Animoca Brands, DFG, and others. This investment will be used to develop the community to bid for parachains on Polkadot and Kusama.

Unique Network is an NFT public chain designed based on Polkadot and Kusama, allowing anyone to customize NFT minting schemes through an open-source component library, avoiding issues such as high gas fees on Ethereum.

16. Blockchain gaming infrastructure provider Forte completes $185 million financing at a $1 billion valuation, with participation from a16z and others

On May 22, blockchain gaming infrastructure provider Forte completed $185 million in financing at a valuation of $1 billion, led by Griffin Gaming Partners, with participation from Union Grove Venture Partners, a16z, Battery Ventures, and Canaan.

Based in San Francisco, Forte does not develop its own games but provides infrastructure to enable new gaming economies using blockchain technology and will develop products such as cryptocurrency wallets. Forte stated that they launched a testing platform nearly a year ago and released the first batch of games, creating 10 million wallets over the past year, with 10 games currently online.

III. Others

17. SubDAO completes new round of financing, with participation from dozens of institutions and early members of the DCG group, including Ryan and Mask founder Suji

On May 18, Polkadot DAO infrastructure SubDAO completed a new round of financing, with participation from dozens of institutions including Hypersphere, Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, CMS Holdings, NGC Ventures, LD Capital, AU21 Capital, and early team members of the DCG group, including former Chief Growth Officer and Massari founder Ryan Selkis and Mask Network founder Suji. The investment amount was not disclosed. Additionally, SubDAO has received two grants from the Web3 Foundation, with the first grant completed and submitted for approval, and the second grant development task currently underway. The SubDAO team will actively participate in parachain auctions, with specific auction plans to be announced soon.

SubDAO is the Polkadot DAO infrastructure, and the founding team consists of former Technical Team Leaders from IBM and early developers of Polkadot.

18. Cryptocurrency custody company Copper completes $50 million Series B investment, led by Dawn Capital and Target Global

On May 18, cryptocurrency custody company Copper completed $50 million in Series B investment, jointly led by Dawn Capital and Target Global, with participation from Illuminate Financial Management and existing investors LocalGlobe and MMC Ventures. Copper will use this funding to expand its international presence, open at least two new regional offices, increase its workforce, and develop its product suite.

Copper completed $8 million in Series A financing in February 2020, bringing its total funds raised to $60 million.

19. Cryptocurrency custody service provider Fireblocks raises $133 million
On May 18, cryptocurrency custody service provider Fireblocks raised $133 million. Since its establishment in 2019, the company has transferred $637 billion. Trading volume has increased by 2023% since 2020.

The company stated that retail-facing businesses such as Revolut, BlockFi Trading, and Celsius are driving the growth of cryptocurrency custody platforms.

20. Edgeware development team incubated crowdfunding and governance aggregator Common Protocol completes $3.2 million financing

On May 19, Common Protocol, a crowdfunding and governance aggregator incubated by the Edgeware development team, announced the completion of $3.2 million in financing, led by Dragonfly Capital and Parafi Capital, with other participating institutions and investors including Framework Ventures, Hashed, IDEO, Nascent, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji S. Srinivasan. Common Protocol will use this funding to expand its workforce to accelerate the development of products and protocols.

On the Common Protocol platform, a discussion board will be set up for each project's community, supporting on-chain functionality queries, including supporting key token holders (whales) queries, governance, and crowdfunding for new tokens and community activities. Additionally, Common Protocol is building a multi-chain community platform that will integrate projects compatible with EVM, Substrate, or Cosmos, including Aave, Opyn, Terra, and others.

21. Arweave-based file synchronization application ArDrive completes $1.6 million financing

On May 20, the Arweave-based file synchronization application ArDrive completed $1.6 million in seed round financing, with investors including the Digital Renaissance Foundation, D1 Ventures, SevenX, IOSG Ventures, and members of the Arweave founding team. The ArDrive team stated that they will use this funding to make their application more accessible and reliable, and will continue to meet users' needs for permanent storage.

ArDrive allows users to pay once with the native Arweave token AR, and the uploaded documents, photos, and videos can exist permanently on the network without worrying about data limits or censorship.

22. Digital asset custody issuance platform Vertalo completes $5 million financing, with participation from Coinbase and others

On May 20, according to Coindesk, digital asset custody issuance platform Vertalo completed $5 million in financing, with participation from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Tezos Foundation, Wedbush Capital, and others.

Vertalo is a startup based in Austin, Texas, primarily using distributed ledger technology based on Tezos and Ethereum to digitize assets from real estate to equity in the form of secure tokens.

23. German broker Trade Republic raises $900 million, led by Sequoia Capital
On May 20, German broker Trade Republic completed $900 million in Series C financing, with a valuation exceeding $5 billion. Sequoia Capital led the round, with participation from TCV, Thrive Capital, Accel, Founders Fund, Creandum, and Project A. It is reported that Trade Republic has over 1 million customers in Germany, France, and Austria, managing assets worth €6 billion (approximately $7.3 billion).

According to previous reports, German broker Trade Republic launched trading for BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH.

24. Blockchain lending startup Figure Technologies completes $200 million Series D financing at a $3.2 billion valuation

On May 21, blockchain lending startup Figure Technologies completed $200 million in Series D financing at a valuation of $3.2 billion, co-led by 10T Holdings and Morgan Creek Digital, with participation from DCM, Digital Currency Group, HCM Capital partners, and other investors.

Mike Cagney, co-founder and CEO of Figure, stated that this investment will provide the resources needed to further advance their mission of reshaping the financial services industry using blockchain. Additionally, the company announced that Morgan Creek's general partner Sachin Jaitly and 10T's partner and co-founder Stan Mironshik will join the company's board of directors.

25. Privacy public chain Beam completes $2 million financing, will also launch governance token for its DeFi platform BeamX

On May 21, privacy public chain Beam announced the completion of $2 million in financing, with participation from Collider Ventures, Youbi Capital, and others. The funds will be used to develop the DeFi ecosystem, including enabling AMM, LP, collateral platforms, and algorithmic stablecoins. Meanwhile, Beam governance is transitioning from the Beam Foundation to BeamX DAO, and a dedicated governance token BEAMX for BeamX will also be launched on the Beam blockchain.

Beam will also launch the Beam Virtual Machine (BVM) on the mainnet through a hard fork in mid-June and is working with native DApps to establish a decentralized bridge to Ethereum, which will later expand to Binance Smart Chain and Polkadot.

26. Payment network Roxe Capital Limited completes Series A financing

On May 21, Roxe Capital Limited completed Series A financing, with investment institutions including Chainup Capital, Bisen Capital, Consensus Lab, Chain Capital, Chain Pine Capital, Efund, K24 Ventures, N7 Labs, Timestars Capital, OPC, PAUVEY Capital, AKG Ventures, and Xianlu Capital (Coin World), Oscar Capital, and others.

Roxe is a global payment network based on blockchain technology, providing optimal path payments for banks, payment, remittance providers, and consumers such as ECSFin, N2Xpress, IPay Remit, Fairexpay, helping partners achieve real-time, low-cost cross-regional, cross-currency, and cross-system payments. Previously, Roxe Capital Limited received seed round investments from institutions such as Zero2First, HBTC Labs, and MNS Capital, with total financing exceeding one million dollars.