Financing Weekly Report | 14 public financing events; Web3 restaurant loyalty application Blackbird completed $24 million in Series A financing, led by a16z Crypto

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (10.2-10.8) there were 14 investment and financing events in the global blockchain, with a total capital scale of approximately US$82 million. The overview is as follows:

• DeFi announced 6 investment and financing events, among which on-chain credit risk management company Cicada Partners announced the completion of a $9.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Choppa Capital;
• No investment and financing events have been announced in the fields of NFT and Metaverse;
• Chain game track announced1 Starting investment and financing: GameFi platform NexGami announced the completion of a US$2 million seed round of financing, with participation from Polygon Ventures and others;
• Infrastructure and Tools track announced 4 financing, in which blockchain product development company Trinetix announced a strategic investment of US$10 million from investment fund Hypra;
• Other Web3/encryption-related projects announced 3 financing, among which Blackbird, a Web3 restaurant loyalty application, announced the completion of a $24 million Series A round of financing, led by a16z Crypto;
• No investment and financing events have been announced in the field of centralized finance.


DeFi

On-chain credit risk management company Cicada Partners completed a $9.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Choppa Capital

Cicada Partners, an on-chain credit risk management company, announced the completion of a US$9.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Choppa Capital, with participation from Bitscale, Bodhi Ventures, and Shiliang Tang. The funds raised will be used to provide multiple new non-custodial lending pools. Seed funding and conduct research and development on new blockchain lending use cases.

Crypto startup Ostium Labs completed $3.5 million in financing to develop perpetual contract trading for digital commodities

Cryptocurrency startup Ostium Labs has raised $3.5 million in funding to develop a perpetual swap protocol for digital commodities. Diversified investors including General Catalyst, LocalGlobe, SIG and Balaji Srinivasan provide support. Co-founder Kaledora Kiernan-Linn said the protocol will support perpetual contract trading related to oil, Bitcoin and petroleum. It will also support trading on FX pairs for the Australian dollar, British pound, euro and Japanese yen.

Solana ecological DEX Convergence RFQ completed a pre-seed round of financing of US$2.5 million, led by C² Ventures

Solana ecological DEX Convergence RFQ completed a pre-seed round of financing of US$2.5 million at a valuation of US$30 million, led by C² Ventures, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Israel Blockchain Association, Auros Global and others. Convergence RFQ has set the trading symbol for its “governance” token to be CVG. It is reported that Convergence RFQ, an on-chain encryption trading platform built on Solana, will support spot and derivatives trading. The platform is expected to be launched early next month and hopes to expand to Arbitrum.

RWA tokenization platform DigiShares completed US$2 million in financing and plans to raise another US$1.2 million

DigiShares, a real world asset (RWA) tokenization platform, announced the completion of US$2 million in financing. Specific investor information has not yet been disclosed. DigiShares is raising an additional $1.2 million through crowdfunding platform Republic. DigiShares said it will use the new funds to develop a blockchain-based real estate share trading platform, RealEstate.Exchange, which will support round-the-clock trading and control corporate behavior through smart contracts to ensure transparency.

L1 Advisors completes $1.6 million in seed round financing, including $1 million strategic investment from VanEck

On-chain wealth and asset management protocol L1 Advisors completed a $1.6 million seed round of financing. This includes a strategic investment of US$1 million from VanEck, with participation from Ironclad Financial, Ismail Jai Hokimi and others. The financing will be used to build an operating system for on-chain wealth and asset management, designed to enable financial professionals and their clients to leverage decentralized infrastructure such as protocols and wallets to manage, grow and protect their assets.

Liquidity staking platform Accumulated Finance V2 completed financing, with Curve and others participating

The Accumulated Finance team announced that the liquidity staking platform Accumulated Finance V2 has completed a new round of private placement financing. Curve, De Facto Capital, Stake DAO, etc. participated in the investment, and the financing amount has not been disclosed. In August this year, the Accumulated Finance team announced the launch of the Accumulated Finance V2 protocol, which provides incentivized liquidity staking and DeFi pools for mid- and low-market capitalization proof-of-stake protocols. The protocol will be based on ACFI token governance and is expected to be launched in 2024 Officially launched at the beginning of the year.

Chain Games

GameFi platform NexGami completed a $2 million seed round of financing, with a post-money valuation of $20 million

GameFi platform NexGami announced the completion of a US$2 million seed round of financing, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Fundamental Labs and Ledger Capital, with a post-money valuation of US$20 million. It is reported that NexGami is committed to providing seamless integrated solutions for game products and enhancing the gaming experience of users within the Polygon network, and introducing outside game users into the GameFi ecosystem.

Infrastructure & Tools

Blockchain product development company Trinetix completed US$10 million in strategic financing

Blockchain product development company Trinetix announced it has received a $10 million strategic investment from investment fund Hypra. The new funding will enable Trinetix to further expand into Latin America, enhance its operations for North American customers, and expand its Latin American market.

It is reported that Trinetix mainly provides blockchain engineering solutions, intelligent automation services, and cloud support products for global enterprises. Its customers include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Exxon Mobil. The team is currently distributed in Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States.

TON received tens of millions of dollars in investment from MEXC Ventures

The decentralized blockchain platform The Open Network (TON) received tens of millions of dollars in investment from MEXC Ventures, a venture capital company under MEXC. The specific amount was not disclosed. At the same time, MEXC and the TON Foundation have established a strategic partnership aimed at promoting global Web3 accessibility by lowering barriers to entry. MEXC Ventures will also continue to fund TON-based mini-applications. Additionally, MEXC and the TON Foundation are also discussing funding crypto wallets on Telegram.

AirDAO announces $7.5 million investment from DWF Labs

AirDAO announced in an official blog a $7.5 million investment (with a one-year lock-in period and an unlock period of 36 months) from DWF Labs to promote wider adoption of the AirDAO ecosystem, following the acquisition of DWF Labs 200 in September 2022 Continuation and expansion of partnership following $10,000 investment. It is reported that AirDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that manages the AMB-Net (Ambrosus Network) public chain. AMB-Net is a Layer1 public chain. Currently, AMB-Net has established a series of ecological functions, including encrypted dashboards, cross-chain Bridge, Swap trading platform, etc.

Privacy protocol Fairblock completed a $2.5 million pre-seed round of financing, led by Galileo

Privacy infrastructure provider Fairblock completed a $2.5 million pre-seed round of financing, led by Galileo, with participation from Lemniscap, Dilectic, Robot Ventures, GSR, Chorus One, Dorahacks and Reverie. Fairblock aims to make conditional decryption and pre-execution privacy a reality. Conditional decryption refers to allowing users to set conditions that enable the protocol to execute transactions without revealing any on-chain information before execution. Unlike zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, Fairblock is designed so that information is only encrypted or decrypted under specific conditions. Fairblock co-founder Peyman Momeni said applications such as sealed bid auctions, randomness generation, private governance, crypto limit orders and more can all be built on top of its infrastructure using crypto libraries.

other

Web3 catering platform Blackbird completed US$24 million in Series A financing, led by a16z

Web3 restaurant loyalty application Blackbird announced the completion of a $24 million Series A round of financing, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from QED, Union Square Ventures, Shine, iant and multiple restaurant groups. This round brings Blackbird’s total funding to $35 million, which the company plans to use to expand its business. Blackbird focuses on creating a direct connection between restaurants and guests through loyalty and membership services. In addition to collecting customers’ dining preferences, Blackbird also uses cryptocurrency to reward check-ins. According to previous news, in October last year, Blackbird completed a US$11 million seed round of financing. Union Square Ventures, Shine Capital and Multicoin Capital co-led the investment, with participation from iant, Circle Ventures and IAC.

Web3 social application Phaver has completed a seed round of financing of US$7 million, with a valuation of approximately US$80 million

Web3 social application Phaver announced that it has completed a US$7 million seed round of financing. Polygon Ventures, Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital, dao5, Foresight Ventures, Alphanonce, f.actor, Superhero Capital, SwissBorg and other institutions participated in the investment. The total amount of funds raised so far exceeds 8 million US dollars, with a valuation of approximately US$80 million. The funds raised will be used to expand the size of the team as well as product development and other partnerships. Currently Phaver has integrated its social graph with Lens Protocol and CyberConnect.

On-chain art brokerage company Fountain announced the completion of financing, Flamingo DAO incubation, 6529 Capital and others participated in the investment

Fountain, an on-chain art brokerage company, announced the completion of financing. The amount of financing was not disclosed. Fountain was incubated by Flamingo DAO, with participation from Collab+Currency, Sfermion, VonMises, Cozomo de’ Medici, 6529 Capital, etc. Fountain is an art brokerage platform. This product is designed to serve two groups - members of the traditional art community and crypto natives. This product provides users with pure peer-to-peer OTC trading services.

Venture capital institutions

CMCC Global’s new fund has completed US$100 million in fundraising and will invest in Hong Kong blockchain companies

CMCC Global, a Hong Kong venture capital institution focusing on cryptocurrency, announced that its newly established fund “Titan Fund” has completed the first round of fundraising of US$100 million. Block.one, Yingke Group, Winklevoss Capital, Jebsen Capital and Animoca Brands founder Yat Siu More than 30 investors are waiting to participate in the investment. Martin Baumann, co-founder of CMCC Global, said that Titan Fund is CMCC Global’s fourth fund and will provide equity investment in early-stage blockchain startups, focusing on Hong Kong. Of the five investments that have been made, two are Hong Kong companies.