ChainCatcher news, DeFi platform Folks Finance has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding, reaching a valuation of $75 million. This round was led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Algorand Ventures, Mapleblock Capital, Sovo Ventures, and others. The total funding for Folks Finance has reached $6.2 million.Benedetto Biondi, co-founder and CEO of Folks Finance, stated that the first $2 million of this round was raised in February of this year, with the remaining $1.2 million raised recently. He declined to comment on the structure of this round but mentioned that the $75 million reflects both equity valuation and fully diluted valuation (FDV), indicating that Folks Finance may issue tokens in the future.According to RootData, Folks Finance is a DeFi platform that provides innovative tools for lending, trading, and managing digital assets. Users can deposit assets to earn yields, obtain loans by providing collateral, swap assets through Folks Router, and participate in Algorand governance with gALGO and xALGO assets.

ChainCatcher news, Borderless Capital has launched a LATAM fund with a size of $50 million, aimed at driving Web3 innovation in Latin America. The fund focuses on Web3 projects in Latin America to tap into the unique opportunities for blockchain adoption in the region and the potential for local innovations to address global challenges.It is reported that Matias A., the Chief Financial and Investment Officer of the Avalanche Foundation, has also joined the fund.

ChainCatcher news, Borderless Capital partner Alvaro Garcia recently stated, "DePIN may be the only category in Web3 whose value comes from outside the crypto industry." He believes this also allows DePIN projects to uniquely resist bear markets that may affect other crypto projects. In a recent interview during the mainnet conference, DePIN protocol Akash CEO Greg Osuri responded to this viewpoint. The protocol provides users with a decentralized marketplace to buy and sell computing power using the AKT token and stated that regulators have taken notice of the project's role.

ChainCatcher news, according to PR Newswire, the decentralized liquidity market and liquid staking protocol Meridian, built on Movement, announced the completion of a $4 million seed round financing, led jointly by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital, with participation from institutions such as Amber Group, Saison Capital, Interop Ventures, and Oak Grove Ventures.With this funding, Meridian plans to expand its global team, actively recruiting talent in engineering, product, and marketing. The protocol is currently live on the testnet and plans to launch simultaneously on the Movement mainnet on its launch day.It is worth noting that compared to existing EVM and SVM solutions, the Move ecosystem currently accounts for only a small portion of on-chain liquidity and trading volume. Meridian plans to leverage the security and composability of the Move language to bridge this gap.

ChainCatcher news, the liquid staking protocol Amnis Finance on the Aptos blockchain has completed a $2 million financing round, led by Borderless Capital and OKX Ventures. Aptos Labs, Arkgrow Pte Ltd, Ambush Capital, Gate Ventures, Sky Vision Capital, Old Fashion Research, Chorus One Venture, Re7, and Flowdesk also participated.This new funding will enable Amnis Finance to accelerate the integration of its liquid staking solutions within the DeFi ecosystem of Aptos. The platform will continue to focus on enhancing its services within Aptos while expanding its influence through strategic partnerships.According to RootData, Amnis Finance is a liquid staking protocol that allows users to easily maximize the returns on APT tokens while unlocking liquidity.

ChainCatcher news, Borderless Capital has launched its third DePIN fund, which has received $100 million in support. Investors in the fund include the blockchain Peaq, which focuses on DePIN, as well as the Solana Foundation and Jump Crypto.Borderless Capital partner Álvaro Gracia stated, "DePIN will become the global standard for deploying physical infrastructure, coordinating human resources, and creating billions of dollars in passive income, while providing users with convenient access and lower costs."

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the Wingbits protocol, which creates a DePIN flight tracking network based on Solana, announced the completion of a $3.5 million seed round financing, led by Borderless Capital and Tribe Capital, with participation from Antler and several angel investors.The team stated: "Wingbits rewards the data quality captured by antennas maintained by enthusiasts. Individuals are rewarded based on performance, coverage, and uptime, with a global leaderboard to compare the best-performing antennas. As of the end of 2023, there were 40 nodes on the Wingbits platform, which has now increased to nearly 2000."

ChainCatcher news, Web3 artificial intelligence company Network3 has completed a total of $5.5 million in pre-seed and seed round financing. Investors include Borderless Capital, EV3, IoTeX Eco fund, SNZ, Waterdrip Capital, and Bing Ventures. The company plans to use its funding to expand its team and continue developing its technology stack.It is reported that Network3 is building a decentralized edge artificial intelligence infrastructure, currently with 250,000 online nodes globally, covering 184 countries and regions. Users can provide inference, fine-tuning, and training services for edge AI models by sharing bandwidth, computing power, datasets, etc., in exchange for token rewards. At the same time, Network3 plans to release physical mining machines in the coming months.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, blockchain company OpenLedger has raised $8 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital and Borderless Capital. Other participants include HashKey Capital, Finality Capital, Hash3, STIX, MH Ventures, Sreeram Kannan from EigenLayer, Sandeep Nailwal from Polygon, and Kenny Li from Manta.It is reported that OpenLedger focuses on building decentralized and data-driven artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company plans to use the funds to expand its team and strengthen its data pipeline infrastructure, with the mainnet expected to launch in the next quarter. The OpenLedger team stated that as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly prevalent, the importance of data continues to grow, and they are committed to bridging the gap between data and decentralization to drive the development of higher-quality AI models.

ChainCatcher news, the DePIN project Ambient based on Solana announced the completion of a $2 million seed round financing, led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Solana Ventures, Parami Investors, Sonic Boom Ventures, and Primal Capital.Ambient was founded in January this year, acquired the Algorand-based environmental data project PlanetWatch in March, and decided to migrate to Solana. Ambient plans to launch on the Solana testnet this summer, followed by the release of its own token to incentivize users to contribute data.

ChainCatcher news, Wormhole announced that its ecosystem plan includes three components: Wormhole Accelerator, Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, and xGrant Program. Among them, Borderless Capital launched a $50 million cross-chain ecosystem fund to develop the next generation of Web3 applications. The Wormhole Accelerator Base Camp is a 12-week accelerator program aimed at projects, protocols, or startups looking to leverage Wormhole for development. This program is operated by Outlier Ventures, and participating teams can receive funding of up to $200,000. The Wormhole xGrant is open for applications from developers or teams.Additionally, the Web3 asset data platform RootData shows that Wormhole is a decentralized universal messaging protocol that enables developers and users of cross-chain applications to leverage the advantages of multiple ecosystems.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the DePIN project focused on map data, [Natix](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Natix Network?k=NzYxOA== "Decentralized Camera Network") Network has completed a strategic financing of $4.6 million, co-led by Borderless Capital and Tioga Capital, with participation from Laser Digital under Nomura, Big Brain Holdings, Escape Velocity, IoTeX, WAGMI Ventures, and Moonrock Capital, as well as angel investors including Figment Capital managing partner James Parillo, Bitget general manager Gracy Chen, bitcrunch CEO Vijay Pravin Maharajan, and Paul Taylor. This round of financing brings Natix's total funding to $9.6 million to date.Natix also announced today that it will launch its native token NATIX on the Solana blockchain in the second quarter of this year, and it is expected to airdrop 1 billion NATIX tokens to users in batches, accounting for 1% of the total token supply of 100 billion tokens. Natix is a DePIN project focused on collecting real-time geospatial or map data, allowing users to record map data using smartphone cameras and driving assistance applications (such as dash cams and navigation).According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Natix Network is a blockchain-based crowdsourced camera network that creates real-time world maps. This camera's DePIN uses Natix's artificial intelligence technology to map the world while ensuring that no privacy data is collected. In April of last year, Natix Network completed a $3.5 million seed round financing.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the cross-chain auction protocol Mayan has completed a $3 million seed round financing, led by 6th Man Ventures (6MV) and Borderless Capital, with participation from Solana Ventures, Hash3, Big Brain Holdings, Arrington Capital, the Wormhole cross-chain ecosystem fund, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, and Wormhole Labs co-founder Saeed Badberg. Mayan plans to launch a points system to track user engagement on Mayan.It is reported that Mayan is built on Solana and can find the best rates for users to execute transactions from any blockchain. The protocol converts input tokens into USDC and then uses Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to send it to the target chain. The on-chain system facilitates cross-chain transfers through two processes: burning USDC on the source chain, minting USDC again on the target chain, and communication between Circle and the source chain. Mayan also uses Wormhole's messaging platform to send relevant data for auctions.

ChainCatcher news, DePIN Layer1 protocol Peaq has completed a $15 million financing round, led by Generative Ventures and Borderless Capital, with participation from Spartan Group, HV Capital, CMCC Global, Animoca Brands, Moonrock Capital, Fundamental Labs, TRGC, DWF Labs, Crit Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, NGC Ventures, Agnostic Fund, and Altana Wealth.It is reported that the funds will be used to expand the Peaq ecosystem, which consists of over 20 DePINs, covering areas such as multi-chain machine IDs, AI agents, and data validation. The protocol is expected to conduct a public offering and token listing in the coming weeks, with its mainnet planned for launch in May. An incentive program aimed at supporting the development and adoption of DePINs on Peaq is also planned, including gamified challenges that provide rewards for participants.According to the crypto data platform RootData, in June 2022, Peaq announced the completion of a $6 million seed round financing, led by Fundamental Labs, with participation from HashKey Capital, GSR Markets, Delta VC, Mulana, Cypher Capital, GravityX, Waterdrip, Ceras, and Master Ventures.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, U.S.-based cryptocurrency-focused investment management firm Borderless Capital has acquired quantitative firm CTF Capital to accelerate its expansion in Latin America and increase AI-driven strategies and quantitative trading methods, with the specific acquisition amount undisclosed.It is reported that the assets managed by CTF Capital will be integrated into Borderless Capital's $100 million "flagship" open-ended hedge fund. Borderless Capital manages five venture funds with a total value of over $500 million.

ChainCatcher news, the decentralized data coverage solution provider Silencio Network, headquartered in Munich, Germany, focused on combating noise pollution, has successfully raised $1 million in a Pre-Seed funding round. This round was led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Moonrock Capital, Master Ventures, and Cogitent Ventures.Silencio Network plans to use this funding to accelerate company growth, enhance data integrity, foster partnerships, and advance more strategic initiatives. Through its app, users can measure noise pollution with their phones and earn rewards.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the NodeKit team focused on the Avalanche network has completed a $1.2 million pre-seed funding round, led by Borderless Capital, with participation from the Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Polygon Ventures, and the Wormhole Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund.NodeKit is currently developing SEQ------a shared sequencer Layer 1 network aimed at helping Rollup chains launch and decentralize their transaction sequencing. SEQ will operate as an independent blockchain or subnet within the Avalanche ecosystem.It is reported that most existing rollup chains in the Ethereum ecosystem will be compatible with SEQ on the software side, including smart contract rollups (such as ZK and optimistic) and frameworks like OP Stack. Additionally, rollups integrated with SEQ will gain cross-chain interoperability. The design of SEQ will also support various data availability layers such as Celestia.

ChainCatcher news, Linera, a Layer1 blockchain created by former Meta employees, has completed a $6 million funding round, led by Borderless Capital.It is reported that the new funds will be used to expand the team, launch the development and test networks of the protocol, and cultivate strategic influence in the Asia-Pacific region, while continuing to develop its developer academy.

ChainCatcher news, over 20 blockchain teams and venture funds have announced the joint launch of a $50 million cross-chain ecosystem fund, focusing on supporting and developing new startups that utilize the Wormhole cross-chain messaging protocol.It is reported that the fund is managed and operated by Borderless Capital, with investors including Jump Crypto, Aptos Labs, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, Algorand Foundation, GSR, Arrington Capital, and other institutions. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, the Web3 cultural heritage preservation platform Quantum Temple has announced the completion of a $2 million pre-seed funding round, led by Borderless Capital, with participation from the Algorand Foundation, Outliers Fund, Shima Capital, New Moon Ventures, NxGen, and a group of angel investors.It is reported that Quantum Temple uses NFTs to protect cultural heritage and facilitate fair exchanges among collectors, leveraging blockchain technology to permanently preserve and share knowledge, traditions, and cultural art forms from around the world. Currently, Quantum Temple has created a decentralized platform aimed at recording and funding cultural heritage through NFTs. (Source link)