ChainCatcher news, the artificial intelligence search startup Perplexity is in discussions for funding, with its valuation set to more than double to $8 billion.Perplexity has completed two additional funding rounds in 2024, raising its valuation to $250 million, and then to $3 billion.

ChainCatcher news, according to Hong Kong media East Network reports, Hong Kong Cyberport disclosed that its community startups successfully raised over HKD 3.7 billion in funding in the year ending September 2024, an increase of 23% year-on-year. Recent high-profile financing completed by Cyberport companies includes KLOOK, Leapstack, Buy&ship, MediConCen, DeBox, among others, with a cumulative total of over HKD 41.2 billion in funding.In addition, HashKey Group, the second licensed virtual asset trading platform in Hong Kong, has become the eighth unicorn company in Cyberport, reflecting the investment potential of Web 3.0 technology applications attracting investor support, as well as the effectiveness of Cyberport's efforts to promote the development of the Web 3.0 industry.Hong Kong Cyberport stated that the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum, CVCF, is scheduled to be held from October 24 to 25, focusing on how emerging technologies such as Web 3.0 and AI can help startups and investors break boundaries.

ChainCatcher news, sources say that the AI startup Clay is seeking to raise funds at a valuation of $1.3 billion. Last June, the company completed a $46 million Series B funding round at a valuation of $500 million, led by Meritech.Clay supports revenue operations and growth teams to automate the expansion of potential customers. Its clients include Anthropic, Notion, Vanta, Ramp, and Intercom. (Business Insider)

ChainCatcher news, according to Hong Kong media Ming Pao, the Vice Chairman of the Asian Financial Technology Association and a part-time lecturer at the University of Hong Kong's School of Professional and Continuing Education, Chan Wing-fung, stated that asset tokenization has become the hottest application of blockchain in the financial industry. The use of "post-quantum cryptography (PQC)" technology can maintain and even enhance the security of blockchain. Recently, a fintech startup in Hong Kong also announced plans to issue the world's first post-quantum stablecoin, using post-quantum encryption technology to protect transactions and assets. This stablecoin is pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio and uses post-quantum encryption algorithms to ensure transaction security.

ChainCatcher news, DefiLlama data shows that venture capital funds invested over $659 million in cryptocurrency startups last month, a 3% increase compared to August. Most of the funds were directed towards blockchain infrastructure development, with approximately $457 million raised in September in this sector, accounting for 71.5% of the total financing in the entire crypto ecosystem during the same period, which is on par with August's performance. The blockchain gaming industry saw a significant month-over-month growth, with venture capital funds investing $63 million in blockchain games in September, nearly half of which went to Balance Games, which raised $30 million from companies such as Animoca, a16z, Aptos Labs, and DWF Labs.

ChainCatcher news, the smart contract wallet Argent has launched a Telegram Accelerator Program aimed at connecting Telegram users to Ethereum and Starknet. The application channel is currently open and will close on November 1st.The program aims to launch the next generation of mini-programs and will run for seven weeks, with all applications utilizing the Argent Telegram Wallet SDK and Starknet's L2 scaling solution. The official will fund up to 20 high-quality teams, with each team receiving $25,000 in initial funding, and subsequent funding of up to $1 million.

ChainCatcher news, the Solana Chinese community Solar and the Solana Foundation will host the Solana Hong Kong Startup Village in Hong Kong from October 9 to October 16, 2024. This event is co-hosted by the Web3 education platform HackQuest and supported by Hong Kong Cyberport. The Solana Hong Kong Startup Village will select 30 entrepreneurs from the Solana ecosystem within the Chinese-speaking region for a week-long Co-build, Co-live event.The event has also received support from several local Web3 companies and universities in Hong Kong, including OKX, Gate.io, Metalpha, Animoca Brands, ScalingX, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, SOON, and SONIC. Selected Solana ecosystem entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to engage in face-to-face discussions with Solana Foundation staff and founders of leading ecosystem projects, visit local Web3 companies and investment institutions, and explore potential collaboration opportunities. This event is part of Solana's ecosystem building for founders in the Asia-Pacific region and marks the first time Solana Startup Village enters the Chinese-speaking region. Solana will also host the Solana Hong Kong Hacker House from October 24 to October 26.

ChainCatcher news, according to Fortune, startup Kiva AI, which focuses on developing AI applications for specific fields, announced the completion of a $7 million seed round financing, led by cryptocurrency venture capital firm Coinfund. Institutions such as Protagonist, Hashkey, and Peer VC participated in the follow-up investment.Kiva AI aims to provide specialized AI solutions for industries such as healthcare, finance, and law. Kiva AI employs a "human-in-the-loop" approach, hiring experts from around the world to participate in data labeling to ensure the accuracy and reliability of AI models, especially in high-risk areas such as medical diagnosis and legal document analysis.Kiva AI creates additional income opportunities for highly skilled talent worldwide. The company plans to use cryptocurrency to pay overseas experts, which not only provides higher value for the experts but also reduces costs for the company.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, AI Web3 startup Bluwhale, which uses smartphones as nodes, aims to raise up to $10 million through node sales, with the sales activity starting now and continuing until the end of November.By participating in the node sales, Bluwhale users can generate passive income on their smartphones by allowing the application to run in the background, and contribute data in the near future, potentially contributing storage and computing power.Anyone holding more than 500 BLUAI points can stake them to operate a master node on their mobile devices, while allocating three airdrop seasons for all node owners. Bluwhale will sell a total of 100,000 network nodes, and as the tiers sell out, the price of the nodes will increase over time.

According to ChainCatcher news, citing The Information, the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has begun discussions with investors regarding financing. According to an existing investor who spoke with OpenAI executives, the company's valuation could reach between $30 billion and $40 billion, roughly doubling from the financing completed earlier this year. Anthropic generates revenue by selling access to its Claude conversational AI.

ChainCatcher news, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko shared key points for startup survival on the X platform.He emphasized that the only reason startups fail is running out of funds, and avoiding fund depletion can ensure the company's survival. Yakovenko warned entrepreneurs to be highly cautious of long-term contracts, such as long-term office leases or data center agreements, as these are equivalent to debt. He suggested keeping contract expenditures below 20% of total expenses; otherwise, it can be very dangerous.Yakovenko also pointed out that large teams can quickly deplete funds. He recommended that each employee should justify their value through profit or revenue. If the company has an 18-month cash reserve, it needs to achieve profitability or refinance within 6-12 months; if it is not profitable after 6 months, it may need to cut expenses by 33%; after 9 months, a 50% cut may be necessary. Considering that contract expenditures cannot be reduced, this could lead to layoffs of 50% or even 70%.

ChainCatcher News: Japanese AI startup Sakana AI has raised approximately 30 billion yen (about 214 million USD) in Series A funding, with a company valuation reaching 1.5 billion USD. Founded just a year ago by former Google researchers in July 2023, Sakana AI's funding round included investors such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Nomura Holdings, as well as well-known companies like NEC, Itochu Corporation, KDDI, and Fujitsu.Sakana AI has secured processing time on Japan's supercomputers and is collaborating with multiple organizations to strengthen Japan's AI ecosystem. This aligns with NVIDIA's recent initiative aimed at supporting Japan's sovereign AI projects.

ChainCatcher news, sources reveal that the blockchain fintech startup Partior is operating with a reduced number of employees. The company laid off about 30 employees in July, and several others, including members of the leadership team, have also left. Notably, Partior is the latest startup supported by Temasek Holdings to be affected by layoffs and employee departures in the past 10 months.Previously, it was reported that the cross-border payment and settlement blockchain company Partior completed a $60 million financing round, led by Peak XV Partners.

ChainCatcher news, according to Chainwire, hardware wallet startup Kampela has completed a new round of financing, with participation from a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on the Polkadot Network.It is reported that this is a hardware project fully supported by DAOs in the Polkadot ecosystem.

ChainCatcher news, a16z Crypto announced the 21 selected companies for the 2024 Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) program. The companies cover various aspects of the crypto tech stack, including AI, DeFi, infrastructure, as well as consumer applications like photo sharing and maps. The 21 selected companies include:Anera Labs: Building infrastructure to unify all on-chain liquidity;Banyan: Bridging communication gaps at work using AI to bring clarity to enterprises;Blocksense: Supporting the creation of oracles that leverage internet data and CPU/GPU computation;Cork Protocol: A risk pricing protocol that accelerates on-chain credit;Dot: Transforming user-generated pixel art into game elements for on-chain games;Fermah: Building a universal zero-knowledge proof generation layer;Future Primitive: Creating a new home for internet photo enthusiasts;Kuzco: LLM inference marketplace;MeshMap: Building a 3D map of the world and an AR content network;Opacity Labs: Private verification of web2 data through zkTLS;OpenGradient: Building a blockchain designed to bring world computation on-chain;PIN AI is building an open personal AI platform (data + agents);Pod: A new L1 primitive, leaderless and blockless, relaxing the concept of transaction total order;Sekai: Easily create, share, and monetize interactive narratives;Skyfire: An open payment protocol that enables AI agents to pay for anything;Suave: Enabling DApps to accept any token from any wallet on any blockchain;t1: Real-time proof generation, unifying Ethereum;TACEO: MPC cryptographic computing for Web3;Term Labs: A DeFi lending platform matching fixed-rate borrowers and lenders;vlayer labs: Trustworthy verifiable data infrastructure powered by zero-knowledge proofs;zkSpin: Building a highly parallel blockchain to run high-demand DApps on-chain;a16z CSX will invest at least $500,000 in each selected company. The program will take place in New York City over an 8-week training period, where selected companies will gain firsthand experience from top crypto founders, receive guidance and support from the a16z crypto investment and operations team, and connect with other companies and the broader a16z network.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Reuters, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised $1 billion in cash to help develop safe artificial intelligence systems that far exceed human capabilities. SSI currently has 10 employees and plans to use the funds to purchase computing power and hire top talent. The company will focus on assembling a small team of researchers and engineers based in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.The company declined to disclose its valuation, but insiders say it is valued at $5 billion. Investors include top venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and SV Angel. The investment partnership NFDG, operated by Nat Friedman and SSI CEO Daniel Gross, is also involved.Gross stated in an interview, "For us, it is important to have investors who understand, respect, and support our mission, which is to directly enter safe superintelligence, especially spending years on R&D before bringing products to market." SSI indicated that it plans to collaborate with cloud providers and chip companies to fund its computing power needs, but has not yet decided which companies to partner with.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI has raised $100 million in Series A funding, led by New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, and Lux Capital, with participation from Nvidia.It is reported that the funds will be used for talent and infrastructure development to advance "nature-inspired, sustainable, and energy-efficient AI technology."

ChainCatcher news, a16z Games Fund One head Andrew Chen posted on X platform stating, "We will invest $30 million in the next 30 days. I will co-host our new project in San Francisco in January 2025 with members from the a16z SPEEDRUN team, which will include guest speakers, personalized mentoring, and substantial funding support.Applications are now open, with a deadline of September 30. a16z focuses on brand new startups that are just getting started, including B2B/infrastructure startups focused on AI, 3D, game engines, and game studios focused on Web3, VR, AI, Discord, etc.Each selected startup will receive a $750,000 investment, along with 12 weeks of program guidance (from January 6, 2024, to March 21, 2024), including in-person talks, office hours, personalized mentoring, and events."