ChainCatcher news, the decentralized data storage project Akave has completed a $3.45 million funding round, with participation from Protocol Labs, Blockchange VC, Lightshift, and Blockchain Builders Fund. This funding will be used to accelerate Akave's development in on-chain data management.Akave has launched the Yucca testnet, open to early testers, for exploring on-chain data storage and programmability. As a hot storage Layer 2 solution for Filecoin, Akave provides tools for enterprises, AI companies, and DePIN developers to move beyond traditional cloud storage, build on-chain data lakes, and promote the development of data ownership and new data monetization models.In addition, the Filecoin L2 project Storacha has also announced the launch of its Alpha version network for the Filecoin ecosystem, focusing on high-performance hot storage, primarily targeting high-demand application scenarios such as gaming, AI, and DePIN. Storacha was founded by core developers of IPFS and Filecoin, dedicated to providing a distributed storage experience comparable to traditional S3.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the AI+RWA project Compute Labs announced the completion of a $3 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by Protocol Labs, with participation from Blockchain Coinvestors, MH Ventures, OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, CMS, P2 Ventures, ArkStream Capital, Symbolic Capital, Ambush Capital, Amber Group, Oak Grove Ventures, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin, and Solana Foundation strategic lead Austin Federa.Compute Labs will use this funding to expand its core team and advance the development of the AI computing tokenization protocol Compute Tokenization Protocol (CTP) and the first round of H100 GNFT pre-sales in mid-July. It is reported that Compute Labs is incubated by the NVIDIA Inception VC Alliance, providing investors with AI computing returns through the development of the enterprise-level AI computing tokenization protocol CTP and GPU Restaking solutions. The AI computing tokenization protocol CTP is now live on the Solana testnet, with the mainnet expected to launch in Q3, and the TGE to be completed by the end of the year.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Compute Labs is a computing tokenization protocol designed to finance AI, achieve direct exposure to computing assets, and create computing derivatives, enabling investors to easily profit from computing (the currency of the future).

ChainCatcher news reports that the DePIN asset re-staking protocol Parasail has announced the completion of a $4 million seed round financing, with a valuation of $50 million. This seed round was led by Protocol Labs, with participation from D11 Labs, MH Ventures, BitRise Capital, EV3, Fenbushi Capital, Modular Capital, Faculty Group, DWF Ventures, Foresight Ventures, AGE Crypto, Waterdrip Capital, and others.According to the Parasail team, the funds raised will be used to accelerate the realization of various product features in the Parasail Master Plan, which aims to aggregate assets and hardware on DePIN, provide service level guarantees for users, and dynamically coordinate hardware resources based on demand. It is reported that Parasail's TVL exceeds $50 million.In addition to ensuring the security of hardware services through asset delegation, Parasail is building a universal adapter for hardware service provision and verification, enabling the flexible use and circulation of universal hardware resources (such as GPUs, storage, sensors, etc.) across different DePIN ecosystems. With the help of the Parasail protocol, DePIN projects can systematically and efficiently establish their networks and mobilize hardware resources.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Parasail is a re-staking protocol for DePIN assets. It aims to improve the efficiency of DePIN token locking, eliminate specific risks among DePIN service providers, and reduce the complexity of obtaining rewards from DePIN protocols.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, open-source crypto company Zama announced the completion of a $73 million Series A funding round, led by Multicoin Capital and Filecoin developer Protocol Labs, with participation from Metaplanet, Blockchange Ventures, Vsquared Ventures, and Stake Capital. Additionally, angel investors including Filecoin founder Juan Benet, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, and Ethereum co-founder and Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood also participated in this round of investment.Zama co-founder and CEO Rand Hindi stated in an interview that Zama has raised significant funds in two rounds over the past two years. Hindi mentioned that this is an equity financing round, bringing Zama's total funding to over $80 million to date, but he declined to comment on the valuation. As part of the Series A funding, Filecoin's Benet and Multicoin's Kyle Samani will join Zama's board.It is reported that Zama was co-founded by Hindi and Pascal Paillier in early 2020. Paillier is a renowned cryptographer and one of the inventors of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology, which is the core technology of Zama. Zama plans to use the new funding to continue research and development of its FHE tools. Hindi stated that since the early research, Zama has achieved a 100-fold performance improvement, and now its goal is to achieve another 1,000-fold performance improvement to support large-scale applications.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelgraph, decentralized cloud computing service provider Exabits.ai has announced the completion of its seed round financing, with participation from Protocol Labs, Outlier Ventures, Jabre Capital Partners, Valkyrie Fund, Big Brain Holdings, Blockchain Builders Fund, Taisu Ventures, Fortified Ventures, LBank Labs, Paramita Capital, Moonhill Capital, IoTeX, 1nvest, and others. The specific amount has not been disclosed.It is reported that Exabits.ai has also received support from the Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, Harvard Innovation Lab, OV Base Camp, Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, and Google Cloud.

ChainCatcher news, the Filecoin development team Protocol Labs has launched the Venture Studio program, aimed at leveraging Filecoin, IPFS, libp2p, Ethereum, and other technologies within the Protocol Labs ecosystem to develop and support new startups in building breakthrough technologies. The focus areas are projects built on Filecoin, IPFS, etc., including blockchain scalability, cloud data storage, Data Availability Networks (DAN), Content Delivery Networks (CDN), and Data Computing Networks (CoD).It is reported that the first batch of projects includes Interplanetary Consensus, a new Data Availability Network, the cloud storage platform DeStor, and the blockchain-based CDN network Filecoin Saturn, among others.

ChainCatcher news, the Filecoin development team Protocol Labs has partnered with Consensys to support blockchain enterprises through the Consensys Scale program, which was launched in 2022. The program aims to provide funding to 10 blockchain startups each quarter, offering seed and Series A stage financing. Protocol Labs will provide Scale members with products, technical expertise, and potential funding support.

ChainCatcher news, cryptocurrency startup Polybase announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by 6th Man Ventures, with participation from Filecoin developer Protocol Labs, Orange DAO, Alumni Ventures, NGC Ventures, CMT Digital, and others.Polybase was founded last year by Sid Gandhi and Calum Moore, and is currently developing a decentralized database using zero-knowledge technology. Polybase is currently running on a testnet, with its mainnet expected to launch in the coming weeks. Gandhi stated that the startup also hopes to expand its current five-person team by hiring some employees in engineering and marketing functions. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, Protocol Labs, the development company of the decentralized storage network Filecoin, announced via a post by CEO Juan Benet that due to the economic downturn, the company will lay off 21% of its staff. Protocol Labs will cut 89 positions across several teams, including company, member services, and network products, and it has not yet specified whether the layoffs will affect the Filecoin team.According to reports, the cryptocurrency industry has been severely impacted by layoffs since April of last year, with nearly 29,000 layoffs reported to date. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to financefeeds, the crypto satellite company Cryptosat has announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing, led by its co-founders Yonatan Winetraub and Yan Michalevsky, with participation from Protocol Labs, Inflection, GoAhead Ventures, DoraHacks, and others.In May of this year, SpaceX launched the first crypto satellite developed by Cryptosat into low Earth orbit. This satellite, named "Crypto1," is a coffee cup-sized module that provides a physically inaccessible and tamper-proof platform in space, from which blockchain and ledger applications can be launched. It is reported that the participating party Protocol Labs will also collaborate with Cryptosat to test time-based cryptographic technologies, such as space-hosted verifiable delay functions (VDF), among others. (Source link)