Financing Weekly | 15 public financing events; Flashbots completed a financing of 60 million US dollars at a valuation of 1 billion US dollars

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (July 24-July 30) there were 15 investment and financing events in the global blockchain, with a total capital scale of over 105 million US dollars, a significant decrease compared with the previous week. The overview is as follows:

• DeFi announced 1 investment and financing event: Curve’s ecological liquidity platform Conic Finance completed $1 million in financing, invested by Curve founder Michael Egorov;
• NFT and Metaverse fields announced 1 financing: The Animal Age, a pet-raising metaverse project, completed its seed round of financing, led by Spark Digital Capital, and the amount of funds has not yet been disclosed;
• Chain Game Track announced 2 investment and financing, among which Web3 game Delabs Games announced the completion of a $4.7 million seed round of financing, led by Hashed;
• Infrastructure and Tools The track announced 6 financings, among which EthStorage, the Ethereum dynamic storage expansion project, raised 7 million US dollars at a valuation of 100 million US dollars, led by Dao5;
• Other Web3/encryption-related projects announced 5 financings: Among them, Financie, a token issuance crowdfunding service provider, completed a new round of financing of 1.5 billion yen (about 10.8 million U.S. dollars), and TIS Inc. participated in the investment;

DeFi

Curve’s ecological liquidity platform Conic Finance received $1 million in financing from the founder of Curve

Curve’s ecological liquidity platform Conic Finance announced the completion of $1 million in financing, invested by Curve founder Michael Egorov. This round of financing will be used to support the development of Conic, in particular to pay for security audit fees. Conic says more details about Conic v2 will be shared in the coming weeks. Previously, Conic Finance had suffered multiple security attacks.

NFT & Metaverse

The Animal Age, a metaverse project for raising pets, completed its seed round of financing, led by Spark Digital Capital

The Animal Age, a metaverse project for raising pets, has recently completed a seed round of financing, the amount of which has not been disclosed yet. This round of financing was led by Spark Digital Capital, with participation from Angelist, Alumni Venture, Kraken, Vega Venture, Celo Stellar, Founders fund, etc. . It is reported that The Animal Age relies on the world’s largest cat charity rescue organization “Cats Are Crazy Club”, and is committed to creating a new pet raising experience scene through blockchain technology, games, NFT and metaverse. The first of The Animal Age The first product is a cat-themed pet raising game. At present, its Cat Crazy Club Facebook fan group has exceeded 1.1 million users. The company revealed that it will announce some “big partnerships” on July 28, and launch a “Cat Slave Development Program” for the community on July 30. During the period, it will give away Genesis cat NFT, rare props, etc.; its cat development games will also be launched in the next few weeks.

Chain Games

Web3 game Delabs Games completes $4.7 million in seed round financing, led by Hashed

Web3 game Delabs Games announced the completion of a US$4.7 million seed round of financing, led by Hashed, with participation from The Spartan Group, Planetarium, Polygon Labs, and Merit Circle. Since 2021, Delabs Games has been developing three games, Rumble Racing Star, Space Frontier and Metabolts.

GameFi project Kandle.xyz completes $1.7 million in seed round financing led by Saama Capital

Kandle.xyz, an encrypted GameFi project in Singapore, announced the completion of a US$1.7 million seed round of financing, led by Saama Capital, with participation from PointOne Capital, Cloud Capital, Good Capital, Founder’s Room, Seeders Fund, and CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta. The funds will be used to further develop the platform and expand its user base, with its flagship product “Crypto Fantasy Leagues,” a game that allows players to choose cryptocurrencies as battle tokens and face off against other players in portfolio battles. Kandle has established operations in Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria and India, and plans to expand its operations to Asia and North America.

Infrastructure & Tools

Flashbots Completes $60M Funding at a $1B Valuation

Ethereum infrastructure service Flashbots has raised about $60 million at a valuation of $1 billion. The funds will be used to develop the Suave platform, which allows users to “transact more cheaply and privately” on the blockchain. The company confirmed that it has fully subscribed to the Series B round thanks to participation from “leading venture capital firms, Layer-2 networks,” angel investors, decentralized exchanges and applications, and MEV supply chain players.

The company’s July 21 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed it had raised about $30.4 million of the total it sought. Two other SEC filings are expected to become public in the coming days and will show the company raised the required total, according to a person familiar with the matter. It was reported earlier this year that Flashbots was seeking as much as $50 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation.

Related Reading: Flashbots to Launch SUAVE: Balancing Censorship and Decentralization

EthStorage, an Ethereum dynamic storage expansion project, raised $7 million at a valuation of $100 million, led by Dao5

EthStorage, a two-layer network data storage solution project for Ethereum, completed a seed round of financing of US$7 million at a valuation of US$100 million. This round of financing was led by Dao5, with participation from SevenX Ventures, Foresight Venture, DragonRoark, Cloud Nine Capital, Avant Blockchain Capital, Future Money Group, and Gate Ventures. It is reported that EthStorage is a second-tier solution that provides programmable dynamic data storage based on Ethereum data availability technology. The team has received funding from the Ethereum Foundation Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) twice for data availability. A study of sampling and a proof study of dynamic data storage in 2-tier networks. At the same time, it also won the first place in the Super Demo event of the Community Ethereum Development Conference (EDCON) held in Montenegro in 2023.

Cryptocurrency hardware manufacturer Fabric Cryptography completes $6 million pre-seed round of financing, led by Metaplanet

Cryptocurrency hardware producer Fabric Cryptography announced the completion of a $6 million pre-seed round of financing led by Metaplanet, with participation from Nil Foundation, Inflection, Novawulf and Era. Michael Gao, co-founder and CEO of the company, declined to provide information on this round of financing. Valuation information, only revealing that the chip it is designing has indeed received an order worth $50 million and signed a letter of intent worth about $100 million with a potential buyer. It is reported that last week Fabric Cryptography also reached a cooperation with the ZK technology developer Nil Foundation to launch a decentralized market for encryption and outsourced proof generation.

Decentralized GPU infrastructure developer Aethir completes Pre-A round of financing with a valuation of US$150 million, led by Hashkey and others

Aethir, a developer of decentralized GPU infrastructure, announced the completion of the Pre-A round of financing at a valuation of US$150 million. This round was led by Sanctor Capital, Hashkey, Merit Circle and CitizenX, and received Mirana Ventures, Animoca Brands, Momentum6, Strong support from Big Brain Holdings, Builder Capital, Tess Ventures, Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes) and others. While Aethir did not disclose the size of the round, it said it has raised a total of $9 million to date. The round follows a seed round led by Framework Ventures and Infinity Ventures Crypto. It is reported that Aethir is a decentralized network infrastructure project (Depin) established in Singapore in 2021 by veterans of the global cloud computing industry. It aims to establish a super-large-scale GPU cloud infrastructure covering the world in a decentralized manner.

Blockchain infrastructure optimization platform Oumla completed the Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Core Vision

Saudi blockchain infrastructure optimization platform Oumla recently announced the completion of the Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Riyadh-based venture capital firm Core Vision, with an undisclosed amount of financing. Oumla helps developers build applications on the blockchain more easily by building APIs and SDKs. It currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polygo chains, and is expected to support Avalanche, BNB Chain, Solana and other chains in the next few months.

Digital asset Launchpad 2MR Labs completed a new round of financing, led by Temasek’s Heliconia Capital

Digital asset Launchpad 2MR Labs announced the completion of a new round of financing. Temasek’s Heliconia Capital led the investment, and Plug and Play APAC, The Assembly Place, PG and LucidBlue Ventures participated in the investment. The specific financing amount has not been disclosed yet. 2MR Labs will use the new financing to support enterprises in their Web3 technology transformation through Launchpad, and has reached strategic alliance partnerships with cold wallet provider UKISS Technology, Web3 game platform MetaOne, and global entrepreneurship and innovation platform Plug and Play APAC.

other

Token issuance crowdfunding service provider Financie completed a new round of financing of about 10.8 million US dollars, TIS Inc. participated in the investment

Financie, a token issuance crowdfunding service provider, announced the completion of a new round of financing of 1.5 billion yen (approximately US$10.8 million). ). Financie, Inc. is a token-based community and ecosystem service company, which owns blockchain-based token issuance crowdfunding service FiNANCiE, NFT business and IEO support business.

Decentralized social platform Passage completes $6 million private placement token financing, led by Akash Network

Passage, a decentralized social function platform, completed $6 million in private token financing. This round of financing was led by Akash Network, with participation from Druid Ventures, Vitwit, Cosmostation, Hyperchain Capital, Chorus One, and Cogitent Ventures. Passage will use the funds Further develop and build tools. Passage is built on Cosmos and integrated with Sortium’s artificial intelligence technology. PASG tokens will be publicly sold on StreamSwap on August 29, and a beta version will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Sui Ecological Social Graph Protocol Releap completes $2.1 million in financing

Releap Protocol, a decentralized social graph based on the Sui ecosystem, announced the completion of $2.1 million in financing, Sui Foundation, GBV Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital, Arweave Foundation, Assembly Partners, DWeb3 Capital, Impossible Finance, Solar Eco Fund, MoveBit, etc. More than 30 venture capital firms and angel investors participated in the investment. Releap Protocol is currently launching a social network-centric ecosystem in beta.

Music project Hibiki Run completes $1 million seed round financing

Hibiki Run, a Web3 digital music project, has completed a million-dollar seed round of financing. Participating institutional and individual investors include Synergis Capital, NEAR Foundation, BitMart, TKX Capital, String Capital, Gravity Venture Capital, Yi Lu (co-founder of Weibo), AAG Ventures, FutureMoney Group, etc. The Hibiki Run app has more than 100,000 NFT holders within 5 months of its launch, more than 20,000 daily active users, and more than 7,000 rare NFT holders. Hibiki Run is a gamified digital music platform, dedicated to bringing the gashapon culture popular in the Japanese community to Web3, and creating a P2E social APP with high fun and high spreadability.

Privacy email service Dmail completed Pre-A round of financing, Spark Digital Capital and others participated in the investment

Dmail Network, a private email service based on blockchain, announced the completion of Pre-A round of financing, Amino Capital, OIG, Draper Dragon, KuCoin Labs, HG Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Vespertine Capital, LoneLine, BiXin Ventures, Lead Capital, TsingTing Capital, Wagmi Ventures, Catcher VC, Gate Labs, Kretos Ventures, Black Ventures, and Red Swiss also participated.

Venture capital institutions

VC Firm Valhalla Ventures Launches $66M Flagship Fund to Invest in Tech and Gaming Startups

Early-stage venture capital firm Valhalla Ventures has launched a $66 million flagship fund to invest in startups in the deep tech and gaming space. The company wants to support “bold entrepreneurs” who challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of science and engineering. Since the beginning of 2022, it has invested in 15 startups. Valhalla Ventures was founded in 2020 by Devan Malhotra, Matthew King and Rohan Pujara. Prior to raising its first fund, Valhalla invested $27 million through SPVs in eight companies in the deep tech, gaming and blockchain sectors. Among them, Valhalla Ventures has invested in projects in the blockchain field, including Web3 encryption network Lit Protocol and so on.