Last week, there were a total of 28 public financing events in the cryptocurrency market, with a cumulative financing of approximately 106 million USD | Investment and Financing Weekly Report
Tether announced a strategic investment in Zengo Wallet; DWF Labs strategically invested in the Bidask protocol to enhance trading on the TON chain; Ethereum security protocol Drosera completed a $3.25 million financing round, led by Greenfield Capital.Organizer: Luan Peng, RootData
According to incomplete statistics from RootData, during the period from February 10 to February 16, 2025, there were a total of 28 public financing events in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, with a cumulative financing of approximately $106 million.
From the perspective of track distribution, the projects that received financing are mainly distributed in the infrastructure and DeFi tracks. Popular projects include stablecoin company Plasma, DeFi project Defi.App, AI-driven music creation platform SoloAI, and Telegram ecosystem trading application Blum.
In addition, the DeFi platform Legends completed a $15 million financing round, with participation from a16z and Coinbase Ventures.
*List of projects with financing greater than $5 million last week, data source: * Rootdata）
1. Infrastructure
FrodoBots completes $8 million financing, led by Protocol VC
FrodoBots Lab announced the completion of a $6 million seed round financing, bringing the total financing amount to $8 million in preparation for the upcoming Embodied AI research network BitRobot.
This round of financing was led by Protocol VC, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Fabric Ventures, Zee Prime Capital, Tioga Capital, Sfermion, Solana Ventures, Virtuals Protocol, and angel investors including Solana Labs co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Additionally, eight founders from DePIN projects such as Aethir and Gensyn also participated in the investment.
Stablecoin company Plasma completes $24 million financing, led by Framework Ventures
According to Fortune, stablecoin company Plasma completed $24 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, renowned venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
Plasma plans to launch its own blockchain in the coming months. Plasma co-founder Paul Faecks stated that the project is developed based on the Bitcoin blockchain, utilizing a unique consensus mechanism focused on optimizing stablecoin transaction efficiency, and will support DeFi protocols such as Curve, Ethena, and Aave.
According to RootData, Plasma is a scalable payment and financial infrastructure on Bitcoin. Plasma is built on a native UTXO foundation, allowing gas fees to be paid with BTC and seamlessly collaborating with existing Bitcoin infrastructure. By leveraging a hybrid UTXO/account architecture, users can unlock new features for holding, staking, and deploying their Bitcoin.
DePIN protocol Teneo Protocol completed $3 million in seed round financing, led by RockawayX and Borderless, with participation from Generative Ventures.
Teneo is built on the first layer of the machine economy, peaq, unlocking social media data for Web3 and Web2 builders through the power of the community. Teneo community nodes are a Web3 browser extension that allows anyone to contribute to the growing data network by collecting public posts from platforms like X and Reddit.
According to RootData, Teneo Protocol is a DePIN data protocol. By targeting data pools behind paywalls or currently inaccessible (such as real-time social media insights and machine-generated data from industries like mobile and energy), Teneo creates a standardized access point for AI companies, exchanges, market makers, builders, ecosystems, and more.
Tether announces strategic investment in Zengo Wallet
According to official news, Tether announced a strategic investment in the self-custody crypto wallet Zengo Wallet to enhance global stablecoin adoption. The specific investment amount has not been disclosed.
ZK digital identity project Holonym acquires Gitcoin Passport for $10 million
The zero-knowledge (ZK) digital identity project Holonym Foundation has acquired the verification platform Gitcoin Passport. The acquisition was completed by the end of 2024.
As part of the acquisition, Gitcoin Passport will be renamed Human Passport to better reflect its status as a PoH solution, allowing individuals to verify their identity without disclosing sensitive personal data.
Passport is an identity verification aggregator that allows users to collect "stamps" or verifiable credentials from various Web2 and Web3 verifiers like Google or Holonym. It is designed to protect user privacy and prevent identity spoofing attacks or hacker manipulation of networks.
Decentralized computing monetization network NodeGo announced the completion of $8 million in financing, led by Hash Capital. The new funds are intended for building a network that allows users and businesses to contribute to AI tasks by completing spatial computing and other computations while allowing participants to earn rewards.
2. DeFi
DeFi project DeFi.app completes $4 million financing, led by Mechanism Capital
According to TheBlock, DeFi project DeFi.App announced the completion of $4 million in financing, with venture capital firms contributing $2 million, led by Mechanism Capital, with participation from DCF Capital Partners, Balaji Srinivasan, and Pentoshi.
It is reported that later this month, DeFi.App plans to conduct a public token sale for non-U.S. KYC users.
DWF Labs strategically invests in Bidask Protocol to enhance TON on-chain trading
According to Chainwire, Web3 investor and market maker DWF Labs announced its investment in Bidask Protocol to enhance TON on-chain trading, with the specific investment amount not disclosed.
For Bidask Protocol, this collaboration represents not only a significant financial investment but also an opportunity to integrate DWF Labs as a potential market maker for the platform.
According to official news, Whetstone announced the completion of $1.3 million in Pre-Seed financing, with investors including Variant, Nascent, Credibly Neutral, Uniswap Ventures, Ambush, Figment, and several angel investors.
Whetstone launched the Doppler protocol, aimed at optimizing on-chain asset issuance and liquidity guidance, reducing bot sniping, improving price discovery efficiency, introducing programmable and auditable vesting periods, and enhancing long-term incentive alignment between project parties and the community. Doppler has been deployed to Unichain and is the first to provide front-end support through Pure Markets.
DeFi project InfiniFi completes $3 million pre-seed financing, led by Electric Capital
According to InfiniFi's official news, the project has completed $3 million in pre-seed financing. This round was led by Electric Capital, with participation from New Form Capital, Kraynos Capital, and Baboon VC. InfiniFi plans to launch a dollar-pegged deposit receipt token (DRT) in the second quarter of 2025 and will integrate with protocols such as AAVE, Pendle, and Ethena.
L1 building protocol Cabal completes $3 million financing, with participation from Delphi Digital
Based on Initia, L1 building protocol Cabal completed $3 million in financing, with participation from Delphi Digital, Nascent, and Hack VC.
Cabal is built on Initia's Layer 1, inspired by Curve Wars, allowing users to deposit INIT and LP tokens to obtain liquid, governable Wrappers, aggregating VIP rewards and governance power.
DeFi platform Legends completed $15 million in financing, with participation from a16z and Coinbase Ventures. The company will use the funds raised in this round to accelerate the development of the Legend application by expanding the team and focusing on marketing.
Legend is currently in the testing phase, with the company's focus on launching in the Apple App Store and building a reliable user base. In the future, it plans to generate revenue through subscriptions. Legend aims to become a self-custody wallet, allowing users to have complete control over their digital wallets holding cryptocurrencies.
3. Gaming
Solana ecosystem AI gaming protocol GamerBoom completes $11 million financing, supported by NVIDIA
GamerBoom announced the completion of a new round of financing, with participation from SKY Ventures, MBK Capital, INK Capital, CLF Capital, Metaverse Group, Bing Ventures, New Heights, Tuna, and support from NVIDIA and Solana. After this round of financing, GamerBoom's total financing amount has exceeded $11 million. Previously, the project received seed round financing from well-known institutions and investors such as Mask Network and DFG.
As an AI data labeling-based gaming data analysis and incentive protocol, GamerBoom aims to promote deep mining and value release of Web3 gaming data, bringing smarter gaming analysis solutions to the industry. Additionally, the project has been selected for Binance MVB 8 and has become a finalist in the SolanaAI hackathon, further consolidating its leading position in the AI + Web3 gaming data field.
Gam3Girl Ventures strategically invests in YGG, purchasing YGG tokens to join its ecosystem
The fund Gam3Girl Ventures, focused on Web3 gaming incubation in Asia, announced a strategic investment in Yield Guild Games (YGG) by directly purchasing YGG tokens from the market to join its ecosystem.
4. AI
Web3 development studio Mirai Labs completed $4 million in seed round financing, led by Mechanism Capital, with participation from Oak Grove Ventures, Sophon Capital, Selini Capital, Bitscale Capital, Manifold, Rubik Capital, Protagonist, Lhava, and others.
The company plans to use the new financing to strengthen its engineering team specializing in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the programming language Rust. Additionally, it will publicly launch Partnr Vaults in the near future.
Mirai Labs is developing an AI agent product focused on crypto called Partnr. Partnr allows AI agents to perform consumer-facing crypto tasks, such as managing wallets and understanding user needs over time. Partnr can connect trainable AI agents with consumers through Partnr Chat and enable vaults for consumers through Partnr Vaults, allowing AI agents to execute functions on-chain.
5. Others
AIGC music platform Fireverse completes $2.5 million Series A financing, led by Nobody
AIGC music platform Fireverse completed $2.5 million in Series A financing, led by Nobody, with support from OKX Ventures, T-Fund, BingX, GateLabs, Chain Capital, Central Research, and Stratified Capital.
thirdweb acquires decentralized social platform Yup to advance Web3 social identity building
According to thirdweb's announcement, the company has officially acquired the decentralized social platform Yup to enhance its Web3 social SDK capabilities and support the Farcaster and Lens Protocol ecosystems.
Yup was founded by Nir Kabessa (CEO) and Vernon Johnson (CTO), focusing on decentralized social and identity protocols. The founders will serve as senior product manager and senior software engineer at thirdweb, respectively. This acquisition aims to promote the construction of portable identities, anti-censorship mechanisms, and monetization tools for creators, further accelerating the development of Web3 social applications. The Yup platform will gradually shut down in the coming weeks, but the YUP token will remain in circulation on-chain.
Telegram ecosystem trading application Blum completed $5 million in Pre-Seed and seed round financing, led by gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from YZi Labs, The Spartan Group, No Limit Holdings, OKX Ventures, The Open Platform, Bitscale Capital, and Wintermute Ventures.
Ethereum security protocol Drosera completes $3.25 million financing, led by Greenfield Capital
Ethereum security protocol Drosera has completed $3.25 million in financing, bringing the total financing amount to $4.75 million. This financing was led by Greenfield Capital, with participation from Anagram, Paper Ventures, Arrington Capital, UDHC, Pulsar, and several angel investors including Jan Baeriswyl, Luke Hackett, Felix Lutsch, Max from DeFine Logic Labs, Diogo Costa, Yaroslav Pshenitsyn, Peter Kim, Mara Schmidt, Daniel from Swell Labs, Abhishek, Anuj Shankar, and Collin Myers.
The funds raised by Drosera will be used to accelerate product development, recruit personnel, and prepare for the mainnet launch planned for the second quarter of 2024.
According to RootData, Drosera is a decentralized event response protocol that leverages hidden security intentions to curb and mitigate vulnerability crises. It is an automated protocol that abstracts the complexity of creating monitoring systems and automated response functions for decentralized applications. Drosera provides a framework for creating and executing automated responses to events on the Ethereum network.
ZK digital identity project Holonym acquires Gitcoin Passport for $10 million
The zero-knowledge (ZK) digital identity project Holonym Foundation has acquired the verification platform Gitcoin Passport. The acquisition was completed by the end of 2024.
As part of the acquisition, Gitcoin Passport will be renamed Human Passport to better reflect its status as a PoH solution, allowing individuals to verify their identity without disclosing sensitive personal data.
Passport is an identity verification aggregator that allows users to collect "stamps" or verifiable credentials from various Web2 and Web3 verifiers like Google or Holonym. It is designed to protect user privacy and prevent identity spoofing attacks or hacker manipulation of networks.
DePIN project Hivello receives strategic investment led by Animoca Brands
DePIN project Hivello has received a strategic investment led by Animoca Brands. The specific amount has not been disclosed. The funds raised will be used for further innovation to simplify DePIN nodes and make them more user-friendly.
Hivello is a DePIN aggregator that allows users to monetize idle computing resources across multiple decentralized networks to earn income. Previously, Hivello completed $1.5 million in financing last February, with participation from Blockchange and others.
