Last week, there were a total of 22 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market, with the number of financing deals and total amount remaining stable | Investment and Financing Weekly Report

Organizer: Xiangxiang Xi, ChainCatcher

According to incomplete statistics from ChainCatcher, during the period from April 17 to April 23, 2023, there were a total of 22 public financing events in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, with a cumulative financing amount of approximately $204.05 million. The number of financing events and the total amount remained stable compared to the previous two weeks.

From the perspective of track distribution, CeFi, infrastructure, and DeFi were the popular tracks last week. There were a total of 2 CeFi projects with a cumulative financing of $70 million; 5 infrastructure projects with a cumulative financing of approximately $41 million; and 3 DeFi projects with a cumulative financing of approximately $38.5 million.

In terms of financing rounds and scales, early-stage projects accounted for the largest share, with 8 financing rounds belonging to seed rounds. The three projects with the largest financing scales were Bitcoin financial services company Unchained Capital ($60 million), non-custodial staking service platform P2P Validator ($23 million), and DeFi protocol iZUMi Finance ($22 million).

(Last week's projects with financing scales between $10 million and $200 million, data source: Rootdata)

1. CeFi

1. Galactic Holdings completes $10 million Pre-A round financing, led by BAI Capital

Latin America's leading cryptocurrency company Galactic Holdings announced the successful completion of a $10 million Pre-A round financing. This round was led by BAI Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands, Y2Z Ventures, Longling Capital, Head & Shoulders, TKX Digital Group, Perseverance Capital, and Palm Drive Capital. This financing will further promote Galactic Holdings' development in the Latin American region.

Galactic Holdings is currently the only compliant large-scale integrated platform in Latin America that simultaneously owns the digital currency wallet TruBit, the exchange TruBit Pro, and the Mexican peso-pegged stablecoin MMXN.

Maggie Wu, CEO and co-founder of Galactic Holdings, stated that Galactic will be committed to the comprehensive development of cryptocurrency business in the Latin American region.

2. Bitcoin financial service provider Unchained completes $60 million Series B financing, led by Valor Equity Partners

According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin financial service provider Unchained announced the completion of $60 million in Series B financing, led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from NYDIG, Trammell Venture Partners, Ecliptic Capital, and Highland Capital Partners.

It is reported that Unchained Capital will utilize the native multi-signature feature of the Bitcoin network to provide customers with shared control over Bitcoin between their own private keys and those held by Unchained or other financial service companies. (Source link)

2. Infrastructure

1. "Wallet-as-a-Service" provider Universal Ledger raises $10 million, led by Hard Yaka

Wallet-as-a-service provider Universal Ledger announced the completion of $10 million in financing, led by Hard Yaka. The Universal Ledger ecosystem will operate based on its native stablecoin, which will be backed 1:1 by the US dollar.

Universal Ledger aims to help users build their own cryptocurrency wallets, primarily serving large financial institutions and administrative agencies. The company has built a tiered verification system that provides low-level verification such as phone numbers and emails, as well as high-level verification of other identity information to ensure transaction security. (Source link)

2. Web3 data management tool Fluree completes $10 million Series A financing, led by SineWave Ventures

Web3 data management tool developer Fluree announced the completion of $10 million in Series A financing, led by SineWave Ventures, bringing the company's total financing amount to over $16 million.

Fluree primarily provides a blockchain-supported semantic graph database to help enterprises manage data assets, allowing developers to store and manage data in a decentralized and trusted format by combining permissioned blockchain technology, semantic web standards, and data security strategies. (Source link)

3. Decentralized database company Tableland completes $8 million financing, led by CoinFund

Decentralized database company Tableland completed $8 million in financing, led by CoinFund, with participation from Multicoin Capital, Blueyard, and A Capital. The funds raised will help support the launch of Tableland's mainnet and the release of new developer tools. (Source link)

4. Metaverse infrastructure provider MetaGravity completes $9.5 million seed round financing

London-based metaverse infrastructure provider MetaGravity completed $9.5 million in seed round financing, with participation from Sino Global, Spartan Group LLC, Market One Capital, and others. MetaGravity will use the funds to expand its engineering and product teams to develop the infrastructure layer needed to support future large-scale virtual universe experiences.

MetaGravity was founded by Rashid Mansoor (CEO) and Tobin Ireland (CBO) and is building distributed computing infrastructure for metaverse gaming and virtual world simulations. (Source link)

3. DeFi

1. Market-making protocol Swaap completes $4.5 million seed round financing, led by Signature Ventures

Market-making protocol Swaap completed $4.5 million in seed round financing, led by Signature Ventures, with participation from New Form Capital, C²Ventures, Kima Ventures, Pareto Ventures, Entrepreneur First, and angel investors such as Julien Bouteloup (Stake Capital), Pascal Gauthier (Ledger CEO), Richard Ma, Meltem Demirors (Coinshares CSO), Frederic Montagnon (Arianee co-founder), and Thibaud Elzière (eFounders CEO).

It is reported that Swaap aims to build the next generation of market-making protocols that utilize a combination of oracle and dynamic spreads to achieve sustainable returns and reduce trading costs. Its unique approach aims to provide LPs with passive and profitable market-making strategies, addressing the critical issue of impermanent loss that is prevalent in DeFi. (Source link)

2. On-chain insurance company Nayms completes $12 million private placement financing, led by UDHC

UK on-chain insurance company Nayms announced the completion of $12 million in private placement financing at an $80 million valuation, led by UDHC, with participation from long-term supporters such as New Form, Tokentus, and Keyrock. (Source link)

3. iZUMi Finance completes $22 million financing through Solv V3, with participation from NextGen Digital Venture, Incuba Alpha, and others

One-stop liquidity-as-a-service DeFi protocol iZUMi Finance announced the completion of $22 million in financing. Regarding the fundraising method, iZUMi Finance issued the "iZUMi zk-Fund" fund series (SFT, semi-homogeneous tokens) through strategic partner Solv Protocol's latest paradigm protocol Solv V3, receiving support from funds and individual investors including Unicode Digital, NextGen Digital Venture, Bella Protocol, and Incuba Alpha, raising a total of $22 million in mainstream digital currency assets such as ETH, stETH, USDC, and USDT.

iZUMi Finance will use this round of financing to support the early liquidity of iZiSwap Pro on the zkSync Era network. iZiSwap Pro is iZUMi Finance's on-chain order book DEX product, utilizing iZUMi's innovative Discrete Liquidity AMM (DL-AMM) model, fully on-chain, achieving 100% decentralization. (Source link)

4. Gaming

1. Web3 XR fighting live streaming platform Karate Combat completes $18 million financing, led by Bitkraft Ventures

Web3 XR fighting live streaming platform Karate Combat announced the completion of $18 million in financing, led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from Delphi Digital, The Operating Group, Alpha Wave Global, Hashkey, Lattice, M13, Santiago Santos, RooxieXBT, and others.

It is reported that on the Karate Combat platform, fighters will compete in immersive CGI environments, with the process live-streamed for users to watch. The platform's XR technology is supported by Epic Games' Unreal Engine, and users can earn tokens called KARATE through the app while watching the matches. (Source link)

2. Blockchain game company Super Duper Secret completes over $1 million seed round financing, with participation from Solana, LD Capital, and others

Blockchain game development company Super Duper Secret announced the completion of over $1 million in seed round financing, with participation from Round 13 Digital Asset Fund, Merit Circle, Polygon, Solana, Overwolf, Big Brain Holdings, LD Capital, Sebastian Borget, Gabi Dijon, and Christian Mane.

Super Duper Secret is developing a "battle royale" type chess game called "Royale Chess," which will create anonymous custodial wallets for players and store the assets accumulated by users during the game's lifecycle on-chain. (Source link)

5. Tools

1. Blockchain infrastructure company Node40 completes $4 million financing

Blockchain infrastructure company Node40 completed $4 million in financing, with participation from venture capital firm Card1Ventures. Node40 is known for its innovative suite of blockchain tools and services, dedicated to simplifying the deployment and management of blockchain nodes. This strategic investment aims to drive Node40's development, enhance its product offerings, and further expand its influence in the rapidly evolving blockchain industry. (Source link)

6. NFT

1. Web3 entertainment technology platform VEGA announces completion of $2 million seed round financing, led by Arcane Group

Web3 entertainment technology platform VEGA announced the completion of $2 million in seed round financing, led by Arcane Group, with participation from New Wheel Capital and several industry investors. The funds raised will be used to expand operations and development teams, explore global markets, drive technological innovation, and establish partnerships.

It is reported that VEGA's core team comes from TikTok and the founding team of JD Finance, composed of senior crypto-native engineers, iQIYI, Asian producers, and media marketing teams. (Source link)

2. NFT ecosystem Flow completes $3 million seed round financing, led by Nima Capital

NFT ecosystem Flow completed $3 million in seed round financing, led by Nima Capital, with participation from Shima Capital and others. The funds will be used to build a rollup-centric NFT ecosystem.

It is reported that Flow is developed by a team led by former Google employees and former Binance Labs incubator staff, and will soon integrate AI into its platform. Flow is currently available on the Goerli testnet and is in testing on the Ethereum mainnet, with tokens expected to be released on April 30. (Source link)

7. Others

1. Staking provider P2P.org completes $23 million financing, with participation from Jump Crypto

Staking service provider P2P.org completed $23 million in financing, with participation from Jump Crypto, cryptocurrency trading platform Bybit, and digital asset bank Sygnum.

P2P.org is developing a new infrastructure platform aimed at intermediaries, rather than its existing services focused on direct holders. The company stated that it will use the funds to develop blockchain infrastructure to enhance user experiences in staking as well as research and development expansion plans. (Source link)

2. Web3 security company Shield completes $2.1 million Pre-Seed round financing

Web3 security company Shield announced the completion of $2.1 million in Pre-Seed round financing, with investors including Kraken Ventures, Eterna Capital, Alchemy, Moonpay, Bessemer Ventures DAO (Steel DAO), Orange DAO, NGC Ventures, Wagmi Ventures, MH Ventures, Coinswitch, 2Punks Capital, Lecca Ventures, and Very Serious Ventures, along with angel investors Rob Behnke, Peter Liebert, Vijay Maharajan (founder of Bitscrunch), and others from Coinbase, Google, Microsoft, and FireEye.

Shield stated that it has received funding from the a16z Crypto Startup School accelerator. Shield aims to help organizations adopt comprehensive security measures to prevent crypto exploits and enhance user trust across the ecosystem. Shield's threat detection software can be directly integrated into any platform via API or integrated as a security bot into Discord for online communities. (Source link)