Financing Weekly Report | 11 public financing events; Crypto technology company Toposware closed a $5 million funding round with participation from Polygon

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 11 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (10.30-11.5), with a total capital size of more than 95 million US dollars, which is summarized as follows:

• DeFi announced 2 investment and financing events, in which blockchain company Surf Protocol closed a $3 million funding round led by ABCDE Capital;
• NFT and Metaverse field has not announced investment and financing events;
• Chain Game track has not announced investment and financing events; Infrastructure & Tools announced 7 funding rounds, including Modulus Labs, a project that combines AI and cryptography, raising $6.3 million in a seed round led by iant and 1kx; Other Web3/crypto-related projects announced 4 financings, including Animoca Brands, which disclosed a $50 million investment from Saudi Arabia’s NEOM investment fund; **
• In the field of centralized finance, no investment and financing events have been announced

! [Financing Weekly Report | 11 public financing events; Crypto technology company Toposware closes $5 million funding round with participation from Polygon] (https://cdn-img.panewslab.com/panews/2023/11/06/images/0q61TeSdUk.jpg)

DeFi

Surf Protocol Closes $3 Million Funding Round to Develop Permissionless Perp DEX

Blockchain company Surf Protocol closed a $3 million funding round led by ABCDE Capital, with participation from OP Crypto and C2 Ventures. The new funds will be used to develop a permissionless Perp DEX (Perpetual Contract Decentralized Exchange) based on the Base Network. It is reported that Surf Protocol is developing a solution to deal with the limited range of tradable assets in the Perp DEX market, and the compatible liquidity offering framework created by Surf Protocol provides more options for liquidity providers (LPs) to balance returns as well as risk with its unique AMM structure.

Infrastructure & Tools

Blockchain company Xage Security closes $20 million Series B2 funding round

Blockchain company Xage Security closed a $20 million Series B2 funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $80 million. Piva Capital, March Capital, SCF Partners, Overture Climate Fund, Valor Equity Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures and Science Applications International Corporation participated. The new funds will be used for R&D and the expansion of Xage’s listing business, with a focus on expanding its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. It is reported that Xage Security is a blockchain startup that provides a secure platform based on blockchain technology for the Industrial Internet (IIOT). The technology can manage billions of devices at once and can even self-diagnose and fix possible vulnerabilities. Xage is primarily used by IoT companies in the transportation, energy, and manufacturing industries. Previously, in 2020, it was reported that the U.S. Space Force chose blockchain company Xage to develop a data security system for it.

Modulus Labs Closes $6.3 Million Seed Round Led by iant and 1kx

Modulus Labs, a project that brings together artificial intelligence and cryptography, raised $6.3 million in a seed round led by iant and 1kx, with participation from Inflection, Bankless, Blockchain Builders Fund, and others. The concept behind Modulus is to utilize zero-knowledge proofs, which provide a cryptography technique that can verify the integrity of something without exposing any additional underlying raw information.

Crypto technology company Toposware closes $5 million funding round with participation from Polygon

Toposware, a zero-knowledge cryptography company, announced the closing of a $5 million seed round extension strategic funding round with investors including Evolution Equity Partners, Triatomic Capital, K2 Access Fund and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

Decentralized Smart Contract Platform Waterfall Network Closes $2 Million Funding Round

Waterfall Network, a decentralized smart contract platform, has announced the closing of a $2 million Pre-A round led by ByteTrade Lab, which intends to use the new funds to drive the launch of its mainnet in the first quarter of 2024. Waterfall Network is currently building an EVM-compatible decentralized smart contract network that allows any device, including low-cost laptops and mobile phones, to run validator nodes, while also providing users with more access and full control over their data, driving on-chain decentralized governance.

Kana Labs Closes $2 Million Seed Round

Kana Labs, a blockchain infrastructure and tools company, has closed a $2 million seed round with participation from NetMarble subsidiaries MarbleX, Nexus One, Klaytn, and Gate.io, among others. The round will be used to enhance smart wallets, Web3 middleware toolkits, and other products, user acquisition, and international expansion, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region of South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The seed round follows an oversubscribed pre-seed round at a valuation of $21 million.

Crypto fraud company Vaas closes approximately $2 million Pre-Seed round led by ABSeed

Vaas, a Brazilian cryptocurrency fraud company, announced the closing of a pre-seed round of 10 million Brazilian reais (about $2 million), led by ABSeed, with participation from Fuse Capital and Honey Island, a subsidiary of 4UM. Vaas’ solution allows you to track the entire history of assets in crypto wallets and identify unusual or suspicious transactions, which can be used to develop new products and expand into traditional financial sectors such as banking.

zkRollup Project INTMAX Completes New Round of Strategic Financing

zkRollup layer 2 network project INTMAX announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing and the launch of a digital wallet “INTMAX Wallet”, with participation from LD Capital, KX, GMO AI &Web3 and Kepple Africa Ventures, the specific amount of this round of financing has not been disclosed.

It is reported that INTMAX’s stateless zkRollup protocol is an innovative solution that solves the high transaction fees, latency, interoperability challenges, privacy concerns, and centralization issues that existed in previous cryptocurrency transactions. Its mainnet is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2024.

Miscellaneous

Amusement:

Animoca Brands Reveals to Receive $50 Million Investment from Saudi NEOM Investment Fund

Animoca Brands announced that it has signed a strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding with “Neom”, a new city construction project led by Saudi Crown Prince Salman Jr., to advance regional Web3 initiatives in line with Saudi Vision 2030. In addition to the strategic partnership, the Company has also signed a Letter of Intent for Convertible Note Financing with NEOM Investment Fund. NEOM Investment Fund intends to invest US$50 million in Animoca Brands, of which US$25 million will be issued convertible notes at a conversion cap of $4.50 per share, with the remaining US$25 million to be used to purchase the company’s shares in the secondary market. Previously, on October 25, it was reported that Saudi Arabia’s NEOM Investment Fund was established and announced investments in Animoca Brands and other companies, but the specific amount was not disclosed at that time.

On-chain copyright platform Trips closes $2.5 million funding round with participation from Shima Capital and others

On-chain rights platform Trips announced the closing of a $2.5 million Pre-Seed round with participation from Shima Capital, Animal Capital, Blackwood Ventures, Serafund and Calligraphy Digital, as well as Blizzard, an Avalanche ecological fund. It is reported that Trips is built on the Avalanche Evergreen subnet to help content creators establish copyright on the blockchain, providing each creator with the tools needed for content protection, identity verification, and monetization, and its service currently supports the video streaming platform YouTube.

Mining:

UK miner Quantum Blockchain has closed £2 million funding raising through new share placement

London Stock Exchange-listed miner Quantum Blockchain has raised £2 million ($2.4 million) through a new share placement. The new funding will be used to advance its R&D program with increased hiring, new hardware, and increased software development, and possibly to establish a cloud service infrastructure in North America.

Venture capital institutions

Ex/Ante, a venture capital fund spun off from Schmidt Futures, has raised $33 million

Ex/Ante, an online privacy and security-focused venture capital fund led by 32-year-old Zoe Weinberg and spun off from billionaire Eric Schmidt’s philanthropic venture capital group Schmidt Futures, has raised $33 million. The fund will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups. It is already backed by other major industry players, including Cendana Capital, Marc Andreessen, the Ford Foundation, and Union Square Ventures.

The fund’s partner is Michael Mosier, a former top lawyer at cryptocurrency startups Espressos and Chainanalysis, and a former leading official at the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments. The duo will seek companies with a single investment of $500,000 to $1 million, and can co-lead companies that typically also fall into more traditional categories, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data infrastructure, digital identity, fintech, and web3. ex/ante has made nine investments to date, including deepfake detection startup Reality Defender, consumer identity company Lockr, and self-hosted company Webacy.