financing

According to market news, Anthropic is in preliminary talks with investors to raise at least $30 billion in new funding, which could become the largest round of financing for the company to date. Anthropic is raising a new round of funding at a valuation of over $900 billion.

The stablecoin yield infrastructure project Osero announced the completion of a $13.5 million financing round, led by Sky Ecosystem (formerly MakerDAO), with Layer 1 blockchain developer Plasma co-leading. Other participants include RedStone, Maple co-founder Joe Flanagan, and USDT0 co-founder Lorenzo Romagnoli. The financing is structured as a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens), with the round completed in March of this year.

The cryptocurrency research institution Delphi Digital released the latest report "How Far Can Saylor Stretch It," which systematically analyzes the Bitcoin (BTC) funding expansion mechanism of Strategy, pointing out that its financing structure is transitioning from "low-cost accumulation" to the "diminishing marginal efficiency" stage. The report shows that in the current asset accumulation system centered around Bitcoin, STRC has become the core financing tool for Strategy's continuous purchase of BTC. Initially, it relied on a significant premium in MSTR's stock price (mNAV far exceeding BTC's net value) to achieve a positive cycle of "issuance leads to accumulation," but as the valuation has fallen back to about 1.24 times the EV-based mNAV, the BTC per share enhancement effect from common stock issuance is nearing breakeven.At the same time, while convertible bond tools have played an important role historically, they have accumulated about $8.2 billion in principal and will face concentrated repayment pressure after September 2027, putting long-term sustainability of the financing structure under pressure. STRC provides a continuous financing source for Strategy by offering approximately 11.5% annualized monthly dividends to income-oriented investors, to maintain the pace of BTC purchases. However, this mechanism also introduces ongoing cash flow obligations, meaning that each round of financing increases BTC assets while simultaneously accumulating future dividend burdens.The report emphasizes key risk scenarios: if BTC prices remain stagnant and MSTR's premium fails to recover, then the "STRC financing purchase gain" may be gradually offset by "common stock dilution and dividend obligations." Although the company's approximately $2.25 billion cash reserves can cover about $1 billion in redemption pressure in 2027, larger-scale debt and dividend structures in 2028 still need to be addressed. Additionally, the current authorized issuance limit of about $28.3 billion for STRC becomes a critical constraint point. Once the limit is reached, the ability to purchase new BTC may slow down, but existing dividend obligations will continue to exist, thus altering the overall BTC per share dynamic growth path.

The artificial intelligence startup Wispr is in financing negotiations, with a valuation of 2 billion dollars.

Blockchain analysis company Elliptic has completed a new round of financing of $120 million at a valuation of $670 million, led by One Peak Partners, with participation from Deutsche Bank, Nasdaq's venture capital division, and British Business Bank, while existing shareholders like JPMorgan Chase continue to invest.Founded in 2013, Elliptic provides cryptocurrency transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering, sanctions compliance tools for financial institutions and law enforcement agencies. Currently, the company screens over 1 billion transactions weekly for more than 700 clients to support the compliance operations required for large banks, asset management firms, and fintech companies to conduct digital asset business.

According to informed sources, Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency platform Kraken, is conducting a new round of capital financing at a valuation of $20 billion, to which Kraken declined to comment.The company has recently significantly increased its merger and acquisition spending—acquiring the stablecoin-focused payment company Reap for $600 million and the digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million, both transactions conducted at a $20 billion valuation.Its largest transaction was the $1.5 billion acquisition of the U.S. retail futures platform and CFTC-registered futures commission merchant NinjaTrader in 2025, which provided Kraken with a significant foothold in the U.S. derivatives market.Regarding IPO progress, Payward secretly submitted an S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. SEC on November 19, 2025. Although reports in March 2026 indicated that the company paused its IPO plans due to unfavorable market conditions, sources stated that the company still intends to go public, but may wait for market improvements.At last week's Consensus conference in Miami, Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the trading platform is "80% ready" for an IPO.Additionally, Deutsche Börse (DB1) purchased approximately 1.5% of Payward's shares for $200 million through a secondary share sale in April 2026, valuing Payward at $13.3 billion (lower than the previous financing round's valuation of about $20 billion).In November 2025, Kraken completed an $800 million financing in two tranches to push traditional financial products onto the blockchain, with investors including Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, and Tribe Capital. Subsequently, Citadel Securities also made a strategic investment of $200 million at a $20 billion valuation.

According to Fortune, AI startup Ciridae announced the completion of a $20,000,000 seed round financing, led by Accel, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.The company was co-founded by former a16z partner Jack Soslow and former Apple machine learning head Jack Weissenberger, focusing on providing AI transformation services for medium-sized enterprises in the real economy, such as home services, construction, and industrial distribution.

According to Bloomberg, Ripple's main brokerage division has secured a maximum of $200 million in asset-backed debt financing from Neuberger Berman to expand its collateral financing services offered to institutional investors.The report states that the financing is provided by Neuberger Berman's specialized finance division, and Ripple can draw up to $200 million in phases based on the borrowing needs of institutional clients in the equity, fixed income, and cryptocurrency markets.

According to an exclusive report by CNBC, Circle Internet Group raised $222 million through the presale of its native token from the new blockchain Arc, achieving a fully diluted network valuation of $3 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led the investment with $75 million, with participation from over a dozen institutions including BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Standard Chartered Ventures, ARK Invest, and Bullish.Arc is a public blockchain designed for institutional finance. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that the company is transforming from a stablecoin issuer into a broader internet platform company, entering the operating system and application business. In terms of token distribution, Circle holds 25% of the initial supply of 10 billion tokens, 60% is allocated to network builders and participants, and 15% is reserved for long-term use. Circle also released a set of tools to help developers build AI agents, supporting transactions and payments using USDC. This is the first publicly traded company to conduct a token presale, and Allaire stated that all companies will achieve tokenization in the future.

The BSC ecosystem's Fortune Protocol has announced the completion of its Seed round financing. This round of financing was participated in by TBV, Cogitent Ventures, X21 Digital, CGV FoF, K24 Ventures, LandScape Capital, and others.Fortune is a new generation Web3 financial protocol focused on building and innovating liquidity infrastructure for prediction markets. The funds raised in this round will be used to accelerate the development of Fortune's AI prediction tools and large-scale prediction models, promoting further development of the protocol in terms of technology, products, and ecosystem.

Stablecoin bank Augustus has obtained a federal banking license issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), becoming the eighth institution to receive this license since 2010, and has simultaneously completed a $40 million financing round, with investors including Valar Ventures, Creandum, Ramp, Deel, and the founder of Circle.

French listed company Capital B (ALCPB) announced the completion of a €15.2 million financing, with investors including global institutional investors and strategic investors Adam Back and TOBAM, to accelerate its Bitcoin treasury company strategy.

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI allowed employees to sell up to $30 million in shares in a recent round of financing, becoming one of the early cash-out participants in this wave of artificial intelligence.The report stated that in October last year, more than 600 current and former employees concentrated their share sales, cashing out a total of $6.6 billion; among them, about 75 people sold the maximum amount of $30 million. Employees had previously waited about two years for the opportunity to sell their shares.

According to Bloomberg, citing informed sources, Canton Network developer Digital Asset Holdings LLC is raising funds at a valuation of approximately $2 billion, with a16z crypto leading this round of about $300 million, expected to be completed in the coming weeks.Canton Network is a public blockchain that allows users to keep some information private and is positioned as suitable for mainstream financial transactions. Digital Asset previously completed a $135 million funding round in June 2025, led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets; in December of the same year, it raised another $50 million from institutions such as BNY Mellon, Nasdaq, and S&P Global.

According to the Daily Economic News, DeepSeek is rarely launching a massive financing plan, simultaneously attracting two major companies, Tencent and Alibaba. Previously, there were media reports that Alibaba and DeepSeek had a breakdown in negotiations. In response, an insider revealed exclusively to reporters on May 9 that Alibaba should not have been in negotiations.

Enterprise blockchain infrastructure Antier Solutions announced the completion of a $3 million financing round, led by GVFL. The new funds will be used to support the construction of secure transactions, verifiable workflows, and institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure, expand deployments in the government and financial institutions (BFSI) sector, and grow business in the United States, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific markets.

DeepSeek's financing negotiations with Alibaba have broken down. DeepSeek launched a massive financing round, attracting major companies like Tencent and Alibaba to participate, but the two sides ultimately failed to reach an agreement. The core conflict lies in Alibaba's desire to strengthen its AI ecosystem through investment, while DeepSeek, as an independent model company, insists on minimizing binding terms and maintaining technological independence, unwilling to accept excessive ecosystem ties.DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has long rejected external equity financing. Although this time he has opened the door for the first time, his bottom line remains unchanged, with the most emphasis on offers with "the least additional conditions." DeepSeek's current financing round is valued at approximately 300 billion RMB (about 45 billion USD), with the fundraising focus on supplementing computing power and R&D funds, while also providing a market valuation anchor for employees to retain talent. Tencent had proposed to subscribe for up to 20% of the shares, but this was politely declined by DeepSeek as they did not want to relinquish a large proportion of control. Ultimately, the China National Investment Fund and others may lead the investment, with relatively loose terms that align more closely with DeepSeek's technological idealism.