Which early projects are top crypto venture capital firms betting on recently? | 3.16 - 3.31
Sturdy, Joystream, Cross The Ages, zkLend, etc.整理：泽祎，链捕手
In this article, Chain Catcher will introduce early projects recently backed by leading crypto venture capital firms (from March 16 to 31), including basic information, official websites, related reports, etc., to help readers further understand potential projects for the future.
Aptos
On March 15, the public chain project Aptos, initiated by former Diem team members, completed a $200 million strategic financing round, led by a16z, with participation from Tiger Global, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, Three Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures, and others.
Aptos aims to build the safest and most scalable Layer 1 blockchain, with a mission to create universal and fair access to decentralized assets for billions of people. Aptos believes that user experience needs significant improvement in terms of security and scalability to reach the masses, especially non-crypto native users.
As a Layer 1 blockchain, Aptos is still built on the open-source codebase of Diem, using the Move language as its development language and adopting an iterative Byzantine consensus protocol. The project also stated that it will not use any Diem intellectual property owned by Silvergate in building the blockchain.
Official website: https://aptoslabs.com/
Related article: 《Why Multicoin Capital Invested in Aptos Public Chain?》
Sturdy
On March 16, the DeFi lending protocol Sturdy completed a $3.9 million seed round financing, led by Pantera, with participation from Y Combinator, SoftBank's Opportunity Fund, KuCoin Ventures, and others.
Sturdy is a new type of DeFi lending protocol that allows users to earn high stablecoin yields or obtain interest-free loans. This is a very innovative mechanism where borrowers do not need to pay interest, while lenders still receive interest because "lenders" deposit the assets they wish to earn returns on, while "borrowers" provide collateral and withdraw the assets deposited by lenders, with returns generated from the borrower's collateral.
When borrowers provide tokens as collateral, Sturdy will use protocols like Yearn or Lido to convert them into interest-bearing tokens (ibToken). Over time, these ibTokens will generate returns; then, the returns from these tokens will be distributed to lenders in the same tokens they deposited.
Official website: https://sturdy.finance/
Related article: 《What is Sturdy?》
Joyride
On March 18, the Web 3 game development platform Joyride completed a $14 million financing round, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, Solana Ventures, Dapper Labs, and others.
Joyride is a Web 3 game development platform that provides game developers with an end-to-end publishing platform that meets all their needs for building, publishing, and operating high-quality Web 3 games, regardless of their familiarity with underlying crypto technology.
The blockchain features provided by Joyride include a multi-chain player token wallet, NFT game asset minting and management. Additionally, the platform can provide publishing support, including analytics, A/B testing, and real-time operations.
Joyride is optimized for the ecosystem of the popular game development engine Unity, allowing developers to build blockchain-based esports, casual, and social games on mobile devices, with plans to launch the JRX token in the future.
Official website: https://www.onjoyride.com/
Related article: 《Web 3 Game Development Platform Joyride Raises $14M Ahead of Launch》
Joystream
On March 24, the decentralized creator platform Joystream completed a $5.85 million financing round, with a valuation of $60 million, led by DCG, Hypersphere, DeFi Alliance, and D1 Ventures.
Joystream is a decentralized video platform that aims to become a decentralized YouTube, with the goal of providing video creators with alternative methods to monetize their work, rather than relying solely on advertising. Creators can sell content as NFTs and transform their personal channels into tokens, allowing anyone to invest in creators and earn a share of their income.
The key features of Joystream lie in autonomy and sharing, allowing creators to avoid the recommendation mechanisms and algorithmic control behind large companies like YouTube, while also ensuring that video ownership is transparent and that data ownership is fully retained. By earning token rewards based on their view counts and likes, creators will be more motivated to produce high-quality work, and readers will benefit from more authentic content.
Official website: https://www.joystream.org/zh/
Related article: 《Joystream: the video DAO platform》
FanCraze
On March 25, the online platform for digital cricket collectibles FanCraze (formerly Faze Technologies) completed a $100 million Series A financing round, led by Insight Partners, with participation from Tiger Global, Coatue Management, Sequoia India, and others.
FanCraze is an online NFT trading platform that develops NFTs on videos and archival images capturing some of the most iconic moments in matches. FanCraze has signed a multi-year exclusive partnership with the ICC (the international governing body for cricket), allowing the platform to develop and sell NFTs.
The ICC provides FanCraze with an archive of video clips and still images dating back 50 years, and NFTs make these IPs liquid and tradable by breaking them down into small parts (50-60 seconds of video and still images), with these "small parts" verifiable for ownership and scarcity without relying on third parties for verification.
FanCraze allows users to purchase NFTs through various payment methods, including credit cards, e-wallets, and UPI. Once a user makes a purchase, its decentralized ledger automatically generates on the Flow blockchain.
Official website: https://www.fancraze.com/
Related article: 《FanCraze: the Sorare of cricket, new NFT juggernaut》
zkLend
On March 29, the lending protocol zkLend based on StarkNet completed a $5 million seed round financing, led by Delphi Digital, with participation from StarkWare, Three Arrows Capital, and others.
zkLend is a Layer 2 currency market protocol built on StarkNet, combining the scalability of zk-rollup with the security of Ethereum, allowing users to transparently borrow assets while continuously earning deposit interest.
zkLend provides dual solutions for different users, namely Artemis for DeFi users and Apollo for institutional users concerned about compliance. Although these two protocols operate independently in the early stages, they will eventually be interoperable to optimize capital efficiency to the greatest extent.
This dual solution can meet the needs of both DeFi individual users and institutional users, especially for institutional users, winning their trust (and financing flow) could significantly expand the capital scale of the entire DeFi system. zkLend may become an important foundational protocol for institutional users in the currency financing market segment.
Official website: https://zklend.com/
Related article: 《Understanding zkLend: A DeFi Currency Market Protocol Built on StarkNet》
Blur
On March 29, the NFT marketplace Blur aimed at professional traders announced it had raised $11 million in a seed round, led by Paradigm, with participation from eGirl Capital, 0xMaki, and others.
Blur aims to address the growing needs of professional traders, improve the NFT market infrastructure, and unify incentive mechanisms. Blur has a team composed of members from MIT, Five Rings, Brex, Square, and Y Combinator.
The project believes that the current NFT market prioritizes retail experiences but overlooks the growing demands of professional traders. With monthly trading volumes reaching billions, the infrastructure has failed to keep pace, while Web2 business models have hindered the space due to misaligned incentives. Blur's mission is to solve these issues and elevate the NFT space to an institutional level while increasing decentralization.
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/blur_io
Related article: 《GM from Blur》
Crypto Raiders
On March 30, the RPG blockchain game Crypto Raiders based on Polygon completed a $6 million financing round, co-led by DeFiance Capital and Delphi Digital, with the funds intended to expand the team and invest in NFTs.
Crypto Raiders is a utility-based NFT RPG game inspired by Zed, Run, and World of Warcraft, allowing players to send characters into battle to raid dungeons, defeat bosses, and earn tokens. If players fail to survive encounters with enemies, they will have no chance to return victorious with loot, as death in the game is permanent.
Players can engage in battles in "player versus player (PVP)" mode and can also buy, sell, and trade in-game assets. Crypto Raiders is built on the Polygon blockchain, where all NFT loot is random, and the value of all loot is also random.
Official website: https://cryptoraiders.xyz/
Related article: 《Crypto Raiders Tokenomics 2.0》
DFlow
On March 31, the decentralized order flow market DFlow completed a $2 million seed round financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Framework Ventures, with participation from institutions like Cumberland (DRW).
Order flow markets enable their participants to buy and sell order flow, and DFlow is the protocol supporting the first decentralized order flow market, allowing order flow to be traded at free market prices.
Order flow is the liquidity generated by market participants, namely unexecuted buy and sell orders, and is a useful asset that can be sold based on its inherent value. The buyers of order flow are typically institutional market makers who purchase it to leverage liquidity to supplement their market-making activities.
DFlow matches retail orders with institutional orders by providing liquidity sourced from retail traders supported by institutional market makers and routes retail orders to DFlow, where institutions pay a premium for retail orders to ensure the best trading prices and prevent on-chain front-running.
Official website: https://dflow.net/
Related article: 《DFlow: A Protocol For Decentralized Order Flow Markets》
Cross The Ages
On March 31, the blockchain game Cross The Ages completed a $12 million seed round financing, with participation from Ubisoft, The Sandbox, Animoca Brands, and others.
Cross the Ages is a digital collectible card game set in a sci-fi world where magical creatures collide with AI-driven robots in a chaotic environment, vying for the ultimate source of power.
Cross The Ages is also a metaverse where developers, digital artists, and gamers can contribute to the project's success by building new cities, creating new games, earning valuable NFTs through adventures, and collecting real-world card collectibles.
The project's vision is to combine the virtual world with the real world, allowing players not only to hold digital assets and NFTs but also to bring them into the real world. In-game collectibles can be used as NFTs. Physical collectible cards are encrypted using NFC technology and connected to smart contracts on the blockchain to prevent counterfeiting.
Official website: https://www.crosstheages.com/
Related article: 《Executive Summary》
Battlebound
On March 31, the P2E game developer Battlebound completed a $4.8 million financing round, led by a16z, with participation from Play Ventures and Dapper Labs.
Battlebound is a P2E blockchain game developer currently working on two games, Evaverse and Project A. Battlebound aims to provide players with sufficient value and ownership that reflects their contributions to the gaming ecosystem, changing the way developers and players earn rewards in games.
Evaverse is a Web3 multiplayer metaverse game that allows players and NFT collectors to compete, play, and socialize in an immersive world. Evaverse is also an open platform for integrating playable avatars for other NFT communities.
The other game, Project A, is a next-generation creature-collecting game where players can discover, battle, and own assets. Project A will enable interoperability between all of Battlebound's games, providing players with opportunities for airdrops, NFT rewards, and early access to games.
Official website: https://battlebound.io/
Related article: 《A16z Leads $4.8M Round for P2E Gaming Startup Battlebound》
