Last week, there were a total of 20 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market, with a significant rebound in the number of financing deals | Investment and Financing Weekly Report

Organizer: Cookies, RootData

According to incomplete statistics from RootData, during the period from August 7 to August 13, 2023, there were a total of 20 publicly disclosed investment and financing events in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, with a cumulative financing amount of approximately $78.6 million, marking a significant rebound in the number of financing rounds.

From the perspective of sector distribution, the sectors that received the most financing last week were DeFi and crypto security, with 5 DeFi protocols and 3 security companies disclosing financing, totaling $13.7 million and $23.4 million, respectively.

In terms of financing rounds and scale, early-stage projects accounted for the largest share, with a total of 11 seed rounds of financing. The most impactful financing was the $5 million seed round completed by the Bitcoin wallet Xverse, and the $10 million investment in the open-source liquidity protocol Helio Protocol by Binance Labs. Additionally, there were 3 merger and acquisition events last week, including the acquisition of the Wolf Game by Pixel Vault.

*（Crypto projects that received financing last week, data source: * Rootdata）

I. Infrastructure

1. Bitcoin wallet Xverse completes $5 million seed round financing, led by Jump Crypto
The Bitcoin Web3 wallet Xverse has completed a $5 million seed round financing, led by Jump Crypto, with participation from RockawayX, Sfermion, Alliance, NGC Ventures, V3ntures, Old Fashion Research, 2140 Bitcoin Ecosystem Fund, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Newman Capital, Franklin Templeton, New Layer Capital, Miton C, Gossamer Capital, Daxos Capital, Sora Ventures, Tyhke Block Ventures, IOBC Capital, and Despread.

It is reported that the new funds will help the company accelerate the development of advanced features related to decentralized finance (DeFi) and Stacks, Lightning, and other Bitcoin scaling solutions. Xverse is headquartered in Hong Kong, supports Ordinals and BRC-20 protocols, and recently announced support for Ledger hardware wallets. (Source link)

2. Open-source liquidity protocol Helio Protocol receives $10 million investment from Binance Labs
Binance Labs has invested $10 million in Helio Protocol to help the protocol continue its transformation into a liquid staking platform. Helio is currently built on the BNB Chain, and this new funding is expected to help the platform expand to other networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and zkSync.

According to RootData, Helio Protocol is the issuer of the over-collateralized stablecoin HAY. In July, Helio announced a partnership and merger with staking provider Synclub, and the newly established foundation will manage the complete revenue streams of Synclub and Helio. (Source link)

II. DeFi

1. Perpetual contract DEX protocol D8X completes $1.5 million pre-seed round financing, led by Polygon Ventures
The perpetual contract DEX protocol D8X on Polygon has completed a $1.5 million pre-seed round financing, led by Polygon Ventures, with participation from Axelar Network, Swissborg Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Veris Ventures, G1 Ventures, Pragma Ventures, and CryptoDiscover.

D8X is an institutional-grade perpetual contract DEX protocol on Polygon zkEVM, aiming to bring DeFi to institutional investors. D8X is currently live on the Polygon testnet, with collateral assets being USDC or MATIC, and offers order types including market and limit orders, with AMM as the counterparty for each transaction. (Source link)

2. LSD protocol unshETH completes $3.3 million seed round financing, with participation from MH Ventures
The LSD protocol unshETH announced the completion of a $3.3 million seed round financing, with participation from MH Ventures, Soma Capital, ICONIQ Capital, EFENT, 922 Capital, Electric Ant, Backend Capital, The LAO, Fan Zhang (Sequoia China), Epakon, Ross Lipson, Marty Hu, Kevin Li (Goldsky), Jai Prasad, Ejaaz Alhamadeen, and 300DAO. The funds from this round will be used to accelerate protocol development and expand its functionalities.

It is reported that unshETH has enabled the LSDfi product vdAMM, which allows unshETH to be converted into AMM pools, enabling users to access deep liquidity within unshETH and swap between different LSDs. (Source link)

3. LSD protocol Puffer Finance completes $5.5 million seed round financing, led by Lemniscap and Lightspeed Faction
LSD protocol Puffer Finance announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed round financing, led by Lemniscap and Lightspeed Faction, with other participating institutions including Brevan Howard Digital, Bankless Ventures, Animoca Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, DACM, LBK, SNZ, Canonical Crypto, and community funds 33DAO, WAGMI33, and Concave. Angel investors include Anand Iyer (Lightspeed partner), Sreeram Kannan (founder of Eigen Layer), Frederick Allen (Coinbase staking business head), Shen Yu (co-founder of F2pool and Cobo), Mr. Curve (core contributor of Curve), Ramble (president of North American Blockchain Association), Calvin Liu (chief strategy officer of Eigen Layer), Richard Malone (chief business officer of Obol), and Ladislaus von Daniels (staking community leader).

The funds from this round will be used to further develop Puffer Finance's open-source project "Secure-Signer," aimed at preventing validators from being slashed during the validation process. This project has received $120,000 in funding from the Ethereum Foundation, with core researcher Justin Drake participating as an advisor. Additionally, Puffer Finance is creating a permissionless staking pool that lowers the participation threshold for independent validators from 32 ETH to 2 ETH, improving capital efficiency.

Puffer Finance previously received $650,000 in pre-seed round investment last June, led by Jump Crypto, with participation from Arcanum Capital and IoTeX.

4. DeFi lending protocol GoldLink Finance completes $1.4 million Pre-Seed round financing, led by Polychain Capital
DeFi lending protocol GoldLink Finance announced the completion of $1.4 million Pre-Seed round financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Kronos, Modular Capital, Reverie, Veda, SkyVision Capital, Double Peak, and angel investors George Zeng and Vijay Chetty.

GoldLink Finance offers high transparency DeFi lending services based on modular risk management, supporting real-time feedback on lending data, allowing users to keep track of changes in their positions. GoldLink co-founder and CEO Sam Weinberg was previously a backend engineer for the dYdX protocol. (Source link)

5. Decentralized derivatives trading platform Holdstation receives $2 million financing from K300 Ventures
Decentralized derivatives trading platform Holdstation announced on social media that it has received a $2 million seed round investment from K300 Ventures, which will accelerate the development of smart contract wallets for on-chain futures trading, focusing on Layer 2 and privacy trading, promoting Web3 adoption and development in more areas. (Source link)

III. AI+Web3

1. AI and Web3 startup Moonbox completes $1 million financing, led by OKX Ventures
AI and Web3 startup Moonbox has completed $1 million in financing, led by OKX Ventures. This round of financing will be used to accelerate product growth and continue developing its core technology, which focuses on building applications powered by the latest generative AI technology for Web3 and NFT applications.

It is reported that Moonbox is headquartered in Hong Kong and has obtained IP from Stephen Chow's films "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons," "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back," and "The Mermaid." The company plans to launch a series of AI-driven NFTs and applications inspired by the art and film industry by the end of 2023. (Source link)

2. WEB3 AIFi platform BubbleAI completes multi-million dollar Pre-Seed round financing, led by Luxtech Capital
Web3 AIFi platform BubbleAI announced the completion of multi-million dollar Pre-Seed round financing, led by Luxtech Capital and an undisclosed publicly listed WEB3 company in Hong Kong. This round of financing will be used to promote BubbleAI product development, deep data mining, and AI large model analysis engines, empowering the most difficult and complex data in the fastest and simplest way for global users.

BubbleAI's vision is to become everyone's Trading Copilot, having built a Web3 off-chain data intelligence system combined with the team's self-developed AI large model analysis engine, creating an "All in One" AIFi ecosystem. (Source link)

IV. NFT

1. Generative art NFT platform fxhash completes $5 million seed round financing, led by 1kx
Generative art NFT platform fxhash has completed $5 million in seed round financing, led by 1kx, with participation from Fabric Ventures, Bright Opportunities DAO, Union Square Ventures, and Tezos Foundation. fxhash plans to use these funds to expand its team and conduct significant platform upgrades within the next six months. (Source link)

V. Web3 Security

1. Cybersecurity startup SphereX completes $8.2 million seed round financing, led by Aleph
Cybersecurity startup SphereX has completed $8.2 million in seed round financing at a valuation of $24 million. This round was led by Aleph, with participation from Pillar VC, Fabric Ventures, and Mensch Capital Partners. It is reported that its main product, SphereX Protect, aims to mark and block suspicious transactions through blockchain applications, and the funds will be used for product promotion and team expansion. (Source link)

2. Web3 security company Cube3.ai completes $8.2 million seed round financing, led by Blockchain Ventures
Web3 security startup Cube3.ai has completed $8.2 million in seed round financing, led by Blockchain Ventures, with other participants including Dispersion Capital, Symbolic Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, ICLUB, and TA Ventures.

It is reported that Cube3 intends to use these funds to expand the platform to enhance Web3 security and educate the community about transaction security risks and their utilization. (Source link)

3. Web3 security company Spearbit completes $7 million financing, led by Framework
Web3 security company Spearbit has completed $7 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Nascent, 1kx, Volt Capital, Breed VC, and Robot Ventures. The funds will be used to build Cantina (an open marketplace for Web3 security auditors) and hire more software engineers to automate service and product market workflows.

According to crypto data platform RootData, Spearbit previously announced the completion of $1.5 million in Pre-Seed financing in February 2022, with investments from 1kx and others. (Source link)

VI. Mergers and Acquisitions

1. Wolf Game acquired by Pixel Vault on August 8
Wolf Game is an Ethereum-based play-to-earn game that integrates NFT and DeFi mechanisms. Players aim to use digital land (with a supply cap of 20,000 plots) to help them gain economic dominance over each other.

Pixel Vault is a Web3-focused media company that has expanded the stories and lore of some of the most popular static on-chain assets through PUNKS Comics. Additionally, Pixel Vault is the creator of MetaHero Identities (a collection of blockchain-based villains and heroes) and MetaHero Universe (a social and gaming platform managed by planet token holders).

2. Swaraj Labs acquired by Juno on August 8
Swaraj Projekt is a music NFT platform that allows independent artists to create music NFTs and earn royalties through auctions and secondary sales. Juno is a cryptocurrency investment platform that provides users with a range of services to earn, invest, and use their cryptocurrencies through a simple checking account.

3. Honey Finance acquired by Sharky.fi on August 9
Honey Finance is a lending protocol for non-liquid assets that introduces the most scalable approach to NFT lending, allowing lenders to earn stablecoin yields while borrowers gain instant liquidity for NFTs. Sharky.fi is a non-custodial NFT lending protocol that connects NFT holders with lenders.

VII. Others

1. Web3 luxury brand Juhnz completes $1 million seed round financing, led by Bixin
Web3 luxury brand Juhnz has completed $1 million in seed round financing, led by Bixin, with participation from LK Ventures, family offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, and individual investors from major real estate firms in the U.S. This round of financing will be used to explore the integration of physical goods with blockchain digital applications, accelerating the expansion of the Phygital sector.

Additionally, Juhnz will initially release 500 limited edition Chinese top-grade Fujian silver needle white tea NFTs, each equipped with high-end dynamically encrypted NFC chips for authenticity detection and traceability. Upon receiving the product, users can tap the chip with their phones to access all information about the tea. This sale will only be available through an invitation-only purchase method. (Source link)

2. Web3 community management tool Rep3 completes Pre-seed round financing, led by Better Capital
Web3 community management tool Rep3 announced on Twitter that it has completed Pre-seed round financing, with specific financial details not disclosed. Better Capital and Lightspeed India led the round, with participation from former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, Superteam's Akshay BD and Tanmay Bhat, Bankless podcast host Ryan Sean Adams, Ren Roy, Polygon founders Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani, Biconomy founder Aniket Jindal, JediSwap founder Rohit Goyal, and Artium founder Supriyo.

Rep3 helps crypto projects manage communities, members, and their contributions through gamified tools, allowing communities to provide dynamic, upgradable NFTs to their members, representing their membership in the community to build on-chain reputation, thereby gaining benefits such as low-cost staking and fair voting. (Source link)

3. Web3 advertising startup HypeLab completes $4 million financing, co-led by Shima Capital and Makers Fund
Web3 advertising startup HypeLab has completed $4 million in seed round financing, co-led by Shima Capital and Makers Fund, with other specific financing information not yet disclosed.

HypeLab is a Web3 advertising startup aimed at personalizing and providing advertising services using on-chain data to help clients grow their businesses and user bases. It was founded by Ed Weng, a former Google product manager with a background in digital advertising. (Source link)

4. Crypto accounting and tax startup Node40 completes $12 million financing, led by Card1Ventures
Crypto accounting and tax startup Node40 announced the completion of $12 million in financing, led by Card1Ventures. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of its tool products and expand its IT team, while also strengthening its cooperation with regulatory authorities. Node40 previously completed $4 million in financing on April 19 of this year. (Source link)