Web3 Primary Financing Rebounds: DePIN, AI, and Bitcoin Applications Become Popular
In the past three months, significant investments include Blockaid raising $33 million, Ritual raising $25 million, CESS raising $8 million, Drift securing $235 million in funding, Blast raising $20 million, and Privy completing funding at $180 million.Source: Cointelegraph
Fundraising in the Web3 space seems to have experienced a rebound trend in December 2023, attracting a large number of investment institutions into hot sectors, including DePIN, AI, and BTC applications.
Among the highlights in December, venture capital firm Foresight Ventures disclosed its third accelerator focused on exploring artificial intelligence, Bitcoin protocols, and consumer-facing protocols, raising $10 million. Hong Kong-based GBA Capital also committed to investing $10 billion to establish a Web3 fund.
In the largest Web3 financing in Asia, South Korean NFT developer Line Next secured $140 million led by a consortium from Crescendo Equity Partners, a private equity firm backed by Peter Thiel.
According to data from Messari, the total trading volume in the last quarter of 2023 saw a remarkable 81% surge, reaching $3.83 billion.
Significant investments over the past three months include Blockaid raising $33 million, Ritual raising $25 million, CESS raising $8 million, Drift securing $235 million, Blast raising $20 million, and Privy completing a $180 million financing round.
Below is a summary of venture capital (VC) activities from Cointelegraph, outlining some successful financing projects in December.
Lolli's $8 Million Series B Funding
Bitcoin startup Lolli announced on December 14 that it raised $8 million in a Series B funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures. Participants in this round included previous investors like Serena Ventures, backed by Serena Williams, as well as new investors such as Sfermion, Ulta Beauty's Prisma Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Rahul Pagidipati, 2 Punks Capital, and MZ Web3 Fund.
Lolli offers Bitcoin and cashback rewards to online shoppers, covering over 25,000 e-commerce sites, including Ulta Beauty, Groupon, and Booking.com. The company claims to have distributed over $10 million in Bitcoin rewards since its establishment in 2018. With the funds raised in this round, Lolli plans to expand its rewards service to other businesses, including online payment service providers.
HTX Ventures Bets on Web3 Education and DePIN
HTX Ventures, formerly known as the Huobi Fund, invested in at least two new companies in December: Academic Labs, a platform utilizing AI for Web3 education, and CESS, a DePIN public chain that has received three grants from the Web3 Foundation.
While HTX Ventures did not announce the investment scale unilaterally, CESS revealed that this round of financing raised $8 million with participation from fewer than 10 institutions, suggesting that HTX Ventures' single investment scale is expected to be substantial. Other investors in the same round for CESS include the well-known market maker DWF Labs and the Web3 Foundation, which supports decentralized development.
Interchain Announces $26 Million Grant Program
The Interchain Foundation announced its grant program for 2024, with a budget of $26.4 million. According to the announcement, the funds will be used to maintain and develop Interchain Starck, an open-source, decentralized blockchain ecosystem.
Currently committed projects under this program include Binary Builders, Confio, Cosmology, Informal Systems, Strangelove Ventures, and Zondax.
At the same time, its future roadmap includes expanding the composability of the Cosmos SDK, investing in the CometBFT platform, blockchain interoperability protocols, and providing funding and security audits for the smart contract framework CosmWasm and the CosmJS library.
