financing

EthLabs founder Barnabé Monnot (barnabé.eth) released the Week 2 update, summarizing the team's latest progress in the launch and financing phase as well as the direction of ecological discussions. In terms of interoperability (Interop), the team stated that they are enhancing confidence in asynchronous interoperability based on zero-knowledge proofs (zk), believing this will help build safer cross-chain bridges and improve the native distribution capabilities of assets in Ethereum's multi-layer network.Currently, some cross-chain paths still experience delays, especially in the L2 → L1 direction; in this context, the intents mechanism can serve as a transitional solution, while sufficient L1 liquidity also helps match cross-chain executors (solvers). At the same time, the L1 → L2 path is expected to significantly reduce confirmation delays through the Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR), with clients already beginning to integrate this mechanism.In terms of ecological discussions, PropAMMs (Proposal-based AMM) have become a recent focus for multiple teams and researchers, with the core being the potential optimization space between L1 execution efficiency and transaction building (block building). Meanwhile, ENS is emphasized as a key infrastructure for Ethereum, and the team is continuously communicating with relevant stakeholders to advance its development direction. Regarding team building, Ethlabs has currently received over 300 applications, processed about 20%, with a short-term goal of expanding to around 10 people and a mid-term goal of expanding to about 20 people, focusing on recruiting talents with engineering capabilities and domain expertise.In terms of financing, Ethlabs stated that the current financing is nearing completion and has received early support from BitMNR, Sharplink, and Ethereum Joseph, planning to bring in 1-2 core investors before entering the next phase.

According to Reuters, AI data center Crusoe Energy Systems is negotiating a new round of financing of approximately $3 billion. After this round of financing is completed, the company's valuation is expected to triple compared to the previous round, reaching around $30 billion.Crusoe was founded in 2018, initially starting with cryptocurrency-related business, and later transformed into a provider of AI infrastructure and data center services. It is currently classified as one of the "neocloud" new cloud computing enterprises, focusing on providing computing power support for generative AI. The company has signed computing power supply contracts with tech giants including Meta and Oracle, and as the demand for AI infrastructure construction surges, its computing power business continues to expand.Previous public information shows that Crusoe completed approximately $1.38 billion in financing last year, with a valuation exceeding $10 billion. If this round of financing is successfully completed, it will become another large-scale capital move in the AI infrastructure sector. Market participants expect that the final valuation of this round of financing may fall around $30 billion, but the transaction is still ongoing and has not yet been finalized.

The New York AI investment research platform LinqAlpha announced the completion of a $22 million Series A financing round, led by AVP, Atinum Investment, and GFT Ventures, with participation from several financial and venture capital institutions from Asia, Europe, and the United States, including Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Hana Ventures, and Shinhan Venture Investment. To date, its total financing has reached $28.6 million. The company provides an AI market intelligence platform for institutional investors, helping investment teams process complex market information through dedicated AI agents. The new funds will be used to enhance market data integration and expand application scenarios for stock, macro, credit, and multi-asset investment strategies.

According to Axios, the cryptocurrency payment company Mesh is undergoing a new round of financing, led by Binance, with a post-investment valuation of up to $2 billion.

The predictive behavior AI network THEA, focused on risk markets, has completed a $8 million financing round to build its coordination layer based on Solana and expand its AI infrastructure. This round of financing was led by Maven11 Capital, Spartan Group, Manifold Trading, Hack VC, and Fisher8 Capital.Founded in 2024 and headquartered in the Cayman Islands, THEA's AI model is trained on over 35 billion real-world decision data, with its core product providing predictive behavior AI for risk markets. The company plans to launch THEA Network—a coordination layer that routes inference requests and settles transactions on Solana while keeping large-scale data processing off-chain. THEA also plans to introduce a utility token to tokenize access to its autonomous system.

According to The Block, the on-chain perpetual contract exchange Extended announced the completion of a $12.5 million strategic financing round. This round was led by multi-asset trading platform eToro, with participation from Jump Crypto.It is reported that this investment is closely related to eToro's earlier acquisition of the self-custody wallet Zengo this year. eToro stated that both parties will work together to expand access to global financial markets through next-generation on-chain infrastructure and explore integration opportunities between traditional financial assets and decentralized trading environments.Extended was founded by former Revolut employees and is built on StarkWare's scaling engine StarkEx, which is set to launch by the end of 2024. Currently, eToro is integrating Zengo's multi-party computation (MPC) based non-custodial wallet technology into its brokerage platform to further expand its digital asset technology ecosystem.

According to Crypto Briefing, Silicon Valley AI startup Higgsfield AI is in talks for a new round of financing, planning to raise between $300 million and $500 million, with a pre-money valuation target of $5 billion.If the financing is completed at the target valuation, it would increase the company's valuation from approximately $1.3 billion in January 2026 by more than four times. Higgsfield has raised a total of $138 million to date, with investors including firms like Accel and Menlo Ventures.It is reported that the scale of this latest financing round will exceed approximately three times the total amount raised previously.

According to Bloomberg, Erebor Bank, founded by Palmer Luckey, is negotiating a new round of financing with investors, aiming for a valuation of at least $8 billion, nearly doubling from last year's valuation of $4.35 billion.Insiders say that the bank's deposits have increased from $1.1 billion to $4.05 billion over the past three months, with nearly 400 new clients, and it is expected to achieve profitability within the year. Erebor focuses on serving companies in sectors such as defense technology and cryptocurrency, and has obtained a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.Previously, its investors included Lux Capital, 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund. Erebor has also signed a non-binding letter of intent with Venezuela's Banco de Venezuela to provide agency services.

According to the South China Morning Post, citing informed sources, the AI video generation startup Kling AI, spun off from Kuaishou, is about to complete a $3 billion financing round, with a post-investment valuation reaching $18 billion, with Tencent participating in this round of investment. It is reported that this final valuation has been adjusted down from the initial target of $20 billion set in April this year.Informed sources further pointed out that with the release of the latest AI video model driving a surge in annual recurring revenue, Kling AI plans to initiate the Hong Kong listing process within the next 12 months. The funds raised and future IPO revenue will mainly be used for infrastructure construction such as computing power and data centers, as well as recruitment and retention of talent.

AI chip startup Oxmiq announced the completion of a new round of financing of $35 million, led by Samsung Catalyst Fund and Fudomo, with participation from Taiwan's MediaTek and Pegatron Venture Capital. The company's total financing has reached $60 million.Oxmiq was founded by former Intel chief architect Raja Koduri and is headquartered in Campbell, California. The company plans to integrate the three major components of GPU, CPU, and tensor engine into a single IP module for licensing, and develop an integrated computing architecture that includes Chiplet and memory, while also entering the custom chip market to compete with Broadcom, Marvell, and MediaTek. Koduri stated that Oxmiq's goal is to become "the ARM of the next era." This round of funding will be used to complete the R&D of the first batch of IP and bring it to market, while also expanding the engineering team.

Data center operator Switch announced the official launch of a $2 billion private financing round, led by a16z. According to insiders, Switch's post-financing enterprise valuation (including debt) may approach $50 billion, with an equity value of approximately $19 billion (excluding new investments). a16z is set to invest about $400 million. Additionally, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are also assisting in advancing this financing round, which may prepare Switch for an initial public offering (IPO) as early as next year. Currently, related negotiations are still ongoing, and the scale, valuation, and timing of the financing may still be adjusted.Switch is headquartered in Las Vegas and was founded in 2000. It currently operates data centers in Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Texas, with a majority stake held by DigitalBridge. DigitalBridge previously privatized Switch in 2022 in a deal valued at approximately $11 billion (including debt) with investors such as IFM Investors.

According to TechCrunch, the privacy-focused artificial intelligence platform Venice AI has completed a $65 million Series A funding round, achieving a valuation of $1 billion and becoming a unicorn. This round of financing was led by the crypto venture capital firm Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, and others.Venice AI stated that the platform provides access to over 200 artificial intelligence models and emphasizes user data privacy protection along with a "low censorship" experience. The company claims to currently have over 3 million active users, an annual revenue exceeding $70 million, and has achieved profitability.The company plans to use the new funds to purchase graphics processing units and build its own data centers to reduce reliance on leased computing power and improve gross margins.

According to official news, the blockchain-based private credit platform Techdollar announced the completion of a $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from NoLimit Holdings, Reforge VC, as well as individual investors such as Newmichwill, RoyLearner, and Ansem.It is reported that Techdollar is a blockchain-based private credit platform that allows founders, employees, venture capitalists, and family offices to obtain loans secured by equity in private tech companies without having to sell shares. The platform adopts a stablecoin issuance mechanism and integrates with on-chain liquidity infrastructure to provide rapid capital access while maintaining private off-chain custody and compliant underwriting processes.

According to official news, the prediction market index provider Adjacent announced the completion of a $2.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with investors including Night Capital, VanEck, UFO Holdings, Maven11, and DCG.Adjacent is an independent third-party event contract and prediction market index provider, and this week it launched the U.S. election index series RED and BLUE. Adjacent stated that it is rapidly expanding its index products to cover global elections, finance, economics, and other fields.

Sivers Semiconductors (SIVE) has completed a round of financing amounting to 700 million Swedish Krona, which was oversubscribed several times, leading to a slight increase in the scale from the original plan. The funds from this round of financing will primarily be used to expand the production capacity of InP (indium phosphide) lasers and optical amplifiers, promoting the company's adoption of a fab-light model for capacity ramp-up.The analysis by the white-haired stock god indicates that this financing suggests SIVE may have reached a critical turning point for scaling development. The financing price was set at 57 Swedish Krona per share, while the current stock price is about 63 Swedish Krona, close to the market price, which helps to form price support. With the entry of institutional funds, not only has the risk on SIVE's balance sheet been reduced, but it has also provided financial support for its transition to the high-volume manufacturing (HVM) stage.

According to RootData's financing data statistics, in June 2026, the crypto primary market disclosed a total of 42 financing and merger events, with a total financing amount of approximately $898 million, a month-on-month decrease of 60.5% and a year-on-year decrease of 67.3%. Additionally, there were 15 merger events, with a disclosed amount of approximately $305 million. Overall, funds continue to concentrate on infrastructure, DeFi, and CeFi, with institutional-level capital markets, on-chain credit, derivatives trading, and stablecoin payment/settlement becoming the main incremental directions.DeFi was the most active sector this month, completing 18 financing and merger events, with a disclosed amount of approximately $330 million. Morpho completed a $175 million financing, becoming the largest financing project in the DeFi sector this month; Fomo completed a $75 million Series B financing, indicating that on-chain trading and consumer-level entry points still have appeal.The infrastructure sector had a total of 13 events, with a disclosed amount of approximately $453 million, ranking first in terms of amount. Projects such as Digital Asset, Ornn, and Trace Finance received funding support around institutional-level capital markets, AI computing financialization, and stablecoin settlement infrastructure.CeFi completed a total of 12 events. Although there were not many non-merger financing events, mergers and institutional trading services performed outstandingly. SBI Holdings acquired the Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank for approximately $289 million, becoming the largest merger event this month; SignalPlus completed a $50 million Series B1 financing, and EDGE Markets completed a $29.2 million Series A financing, indicating that institutional-level trading, derivatives, and compliant financial services are still key areas for capital allocation.The top five projects this month totaled approximately $944 million, accounting for about 76% of the overall disclosed scale. The top three projects in terms of financing and merger amounts are: institutional-level blockchain infrastructure company [Digital Asset](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Digital Asset?k=MzYyMA== "Blockchain software and service provider") ($355 million), Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank ($289 million, merger), and on-chain credit protocol Morpho ($175 million).In terms of investment institutions, Coinbase Ventures, a16z, Pantera Capital, CoinFund, Paradigm, Animoca Brands, HashKey Capital, and others remain active, with top capital more inclined to bet on projects with clear institutional clients, compliance paths, and real use cases.

According to the latest weekly report from Gate Ventures, market risk appetite has further cooled, leading to an overall correction in the cryptocurrency market. BTC fell 6.4% over the week, ETH fell 7.9%, and the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies declined by 5.4%, with the Fear and Greed Index dropping into the "Extreme Fear" range.In terms of capital flow, the spot BTC ETF saw a net outflow of $1.79 billion in a single week, setting a record for the largest single-week net outflow in history, and has recorded outflows for seven consecutive weeks; the spot ETH ETF experienced a net outflow of $273.3 million during the same period, putting continued pressure on market liquidity. Meanwhile, STRC under Strategy has traded below par value for the sixth consecutive week, with the market continuing to focus on its dividend rate adjustments and capital operation progress.In terms of industry development, RWA applications and blockchain infrastructure construction are continuing to advance. Enso launched an RWA application supporting the trading of over 500 tokenized assets, further promoting the development of the tokenized asset trading ecosystem; the SEC and CFTC are coordinating to publicly solicit market opinions on the portfolio margin system, continuously improving market infrastructure.In terms of investment and financing, a total of 18 financing deals were completed last week, with a disclosed total financing amount of $210.3 million. Among them, the DeFi sector had the highest financing scale, raising a total of $114 million, indicating that market funds continue to focus on on-chain financial innovation and infrastructure construction.

SHAZ announced the completion of a $1.6 billion financing to support a six-year strategic partnership with NVIDIA; 11 hours ago, a fund under Leopold Aschenbrenner announced an increase in its holdings of SHAZ to 19.9%. The former rose by 1.45%, while the latter saw an after-hours increase of 14%. The SEC requires that public reports be submitted when a fund's shareholding exceeds 5%.