Financing highlights | Hack VC leads investment in AI project Grass Network; Chris Larsen leads investment in decentralized clearing network Yellow N
The total number of financings last week was 19, which was the same as before, with a total amount of approximately US$263.25 million and an average financing amount of US$13.8553 million.
According to BlockBeats statistics, the total number of financings last week was 19, which was the same as before, with a total amount of approximately US$263.25 million and an average financing amount of US$13.8553 million. Among them, DeFi occupies the majority, infrastructure is relatively more, GameFi is less, and NFT and digital asset management are not available. The following figure shows the proportion of financing in each sector last week:
Infrastructure field, Metaverse/GameFi field, other fields financing, digital asset management/payment field, NFT/digital fashion field, DeFi field, social/creator economy field, Web3.0+AI field
Metaverse/GameFi
In the Metaverse/GameFi field, there was a total of 1 financing, with a total amount of US$3 million, accounting for 1.14% of the total financing last week.
MagicBlock
On September 18, according to official news, Solana ecological game and application high-performance engine MagicBlock announced the completion of a $3 million pre-seed round of financing, with a16z CSX and others participating.
It is reported that MagicBlock is a high-performance engine based on Solana, which uses Solana's high throughput and low latency to build a large number of new types of open, decentralized chain games and applications. Developers can delegate the account of any existing Solana smart contract to the MagicBlock engine for faster performance, customizable runtime and/or dedicated block space.
It provides developer-friendly tools and APIs, supports multiple programming languages, and has built-in NFT asset management functions to facilitate the development and trading of virtual assets. MagicBlock also has cross-chain compatibility and scalability, and can support a large number of users to interact online at the same time. Through its security and built-in token economic system, developers can build complex game economies and decentralized applications to promote innovation in Web3 games and applications.
DeFi
A total of 7 financings in the DeFi field, with a total amount of more than 19.35 million US dollars, accounting for 7.35% of the total financing last week.
0xAstra
On September 17, according to official news, 0xAstra, an innovative protocol for gamified full-chain liquidity aggregation, announced the successful completion of a $3 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was participated in by many well-known investment institutions and head projects such as Ace Redpoint, Animoca Brands, Folius Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Orbiter and Ultiverse.
0xAstra uses a unique gamification strategy to inject vitality into full-chain liquidity and stimulate on-chain interaction. With in-depth cooperation with leading blockchain ecosystems, 0xAstra provides a richer and smoother cross-chain trading experience, pushing the potential of liquidity aggregation and re-staking to a new level. Since its launch, 0xAstra has connected to dozens of mainstream L1 and L2 networks, and in just over two months, the platform's cumulative transaction volume has exceeded US$90 million.
The 0xAstra team is composed of senior experts in the fields of cryptocurrency, games, and the Internet, and has successfully launched a number of game products with more than one million users and millions of dollars in revenue. Through this financing, 0xAstra hopes to lead a new round of innovation in the DeFi field and create a more dynamic and interactive decentralized financial ecosystem for global users.
DEX LogX
On September 17, the on-chain perpetual DEX LogX announced the completion of a $4 million strategic round of financing, bringing its total financing amount to $10.1 million. Hashed Emergent, Cumberland VC, Saison Capital, Gate Labs, DWF Labs, Antler, Coinswitch Ventures, Wagmi Ventures, Kairos Capital and others participated in the investment.
LogX is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform (DEX) that focuses on providing users with unmediated on-chain derivatives trading services. By using decentralized finance (DeFi) technology, LogX achieves efficient liquidity aggregation and supports users to conduct trustless and transparent perpetual contract transactions. The platform uses smart contracts to ensure transaction security, avoiding the risks of traditional exchanges, while allowing users to directly participate in the highly leveraged derivatives market on the chain. LogX also provides real-time market data and a user-friendly interface, aiming to provide traders in the DeFi ecosystem with a convenient and efficient trading experience.
Yellow Network
On September 17, Cointelegraph reported that the decentralized clearing network Yellow Network completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, with participation from Consensys, GSR, NxGen, MV Global, Gate Labs, ZBS Capital, Moonrock Capital, Math, Cobo, NOIA Capital and LD Capital.
Yellow Network is a new decentralized clearing network. Through its innovative protocol design, Yellow Network solves the delay and high cost problems in blockchain transactions and improves overall clearing speed and liquidity. It focuses on providing fast and secure transaction settlement services for decentralized finance (DeFi) and crypto trading platforms. The network uses distributed technology to ensure the transparency and security of the liquidation process and supports cross-chain transactions of multiple crypto assets. Yellow Network is committed to becoming a key infrastructure in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and promoting efficient and low-cost transaction liquidation processes.
The rest of DeFi financing includes:
On September 13, according to official news, the derivatives trading platform Derive (formerly Lyra) announced the completion of angel round financing, with participation from DCFGOD, EtherFi co-founder Rok Kopp, SPREEK and others.
Derive is a decentralized cryptocurrency options and perpetual contract trading platform that supports financial applications and products for a variety of integrators, traders and institutions, aiming to make its protocols and infrastructure accessible, paving the way for the next wave of on-chain innovation and breakthroughs.
On September 13, the liquidity re-pledge platform Eigenpie announced that it had obtained strategic investment and completed its seed round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclosed. Arbitrum Foundation, Robot Ventures, PancakeSwap, Relayer Capital and Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, Frax Finance founder Sam Kazemian, Zircuit co-founder Angel Xu and others participated in the investment.
On September 12, according to official news, Solana Ecosystem DeFi project Carrot announced the completion of a $600,000 Pre-Seed round of financing, with BOOGLE, TraderKoz, Iced and others participating.
It is reported that Carrot helps users earn high returns on stablecoins in an automated way. Carrot uses a single yield token to simplify investment and continuously monitors and optimizes yield opportunities in Solana lending platforms such as Kamino, MarginFi, etc.
On September 12, Bitcoin ecosystem DeFi protocol BTA Protocol announced the completion of $1.75 million in A+ round of financing, led by Crypto Labs, with participation from Cityblok, BlackBridge and others.
BTA Protocol provides applications such as pledge, liquidity, RSP, Launchpool and lending.
Social/Creator Economy
A total of 2 financings were raised in the social/creator economy, with a total amount exceeding US$2 million, accounting for 20.13% of the total financing last week.
Tune.FM
On September 12, Cointelegraph reported that Hedera-based Web3 music platform Tune.FM completed a $50 million financing, with Global Emerging Markets participating.
The new investment will be used to provide liquidity for the protocol's JAM tokens, which are used to reward artists and users within the platform. Tune.fm's previous investors include LDA Capital, Alpha Token Capital, Block Alpha, Animoca Brands, HBAR Foundation, and GDA Capital.
The platform provides music streaming services that integrate NFT markets. Allowing artists to directly release music and earn instant income through JAM tokens, eliminating the middlemen of traditional music platforms, while users can earn tokens by discovering and listening to newly promoted songs, aiming to provide artists and fans with a decentralized music experience. By using blockchain technology, the platform uses Hedera's efficient, low-cost network to ensure smooth micropayments and royalty distribution. Tune.FM has promoted the development of the music creator economy and brought a fairer and more transparent income model to the global music market.
The rest of the financing for the social/creator economy includes:
On September 17, according to Coindesk, the prediction market Limitless Labs completed a $3 million seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation, with participation from Paper Ventures, Collider and Public Works. The company built a prediction market on the Layer 2 network Base created by Coinbase (COIN).
Infrastructure
Fermah
Pipe Network
The rest of the infrastructure financing includes:
On September 16, according to CoinDesk, T1 Protocol, a Layer 2 blockchain protocol designed to solve the challenges of Ethereum rollup fragmentation and composability, completed its Pre-Seed round of financing. A16z Crypto, BreedVC, Benedikt Bünz, Sam Kazemian, Amir Bandeali, Eric Chan, Kartik Talwar, Kubi Mensah, Meltem Demirors and others participated in the investment. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed.
On September 15, Solana ecosystem edge computing open layer Gradient Network completed a new round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclosed. This round of financing was participated by Multicoin Capital, Pantera Capital and Sequoia Capital.
Gradient Network's vision is to make computing services accessible to the public, easily accessible to everyone, and reasonably priced. We firmly believe that edge computing will lead this change. Among emerging use cases, artificial intelligence reasoning, content delivery, and serverless functions stand out and are expected to shape the future of computing consumption.
On September 11, according to chainwire, the blockchain interoperability protocol Hyperbridge completed a $2.5 million seed round of financing, led by Web3 Foundation and Scytale.
Hyperbridge is a cross-chain interoperability solution, and the protocol has also secured a parachain slot in the Polkadot ecosystem, reinforcing its commitment to deep integration and leveraging Polkadot's unique advantages.
Web3+AI
A total of 3 financings in the Web3+AI field, with a total amount of over 155 million US dollars, accounting for 58.88% of the total financing last week. Including:
Grass Network
On September 14, people familiar with the matter revealed to BlockBeats that the AI and data field project Grass Network completed a new round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital, Lattice and Brevan Howard Digital, but the amount of financing has not yet been disclosed, but people familiar with the matter said that the new round of financing has brought Grass's valuation to nearly one billion US dollars. BlockBeats previously reported that Grass had completed a $3.5 million seed round of financing in December last year, led by Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital.
Grass aims to redefine the incentive structure of the Internet by allowing users to share unused Internet bandwidth resources. Today, the network has more than 2 million users running nodes, crawling a large amount of data for AI models. Grass's infrastructure also gives the team the advantage of building the first user-owned Internet-scale web crawler. Currently, only two companies in the world (Google and Bing) have the ability to crawl the entire Internet, and this ability is the backbone of their trillion-level business. Grass's goal is to replace them and create the first user-owned full-Internet knowledge graph.
Poolside
On September 13, people familiar with the matter revealed that Poolside, a startup developing artificial intelligence writing software, is in talks for a new round of financing, which will give it a valuation of $3 billion before the release of its initial product. People familiar with the matter said the company will raise nearly $500 million. Poolside's existing investor Bain Capital Ventures is in talks to lead the round. Poolside and Bain Capital Ventures declined to comment.
Poolside was founded in early 2023 by Jason Warner, former CTO of GitHub, and software entrepreneur Eiso Kant. The startup moved to France last year after receiving $126 million in seed funding. In addition, two other Paris startups, Mistral AI and H, have also received significant financing to create generative AI models.
Poolside is a startup focused on developing AI-written software, dedicated to using AI technology to simplify code writing and software development processes. Its AI writing tools can automatically generate high-quality code, helping developers improve productivity and reduce development time. Poolside's technology is particularly suitable for rapid prototyping and code optimization, solving efficiency bottlenecks in traditional software development. By combining machine learning and natural language processing, Poolside is driving innovation in the field of software development, aiming to make programming more intelligent and automated.
The rest of the Web3+AI financing includes:
BlockBeats news, on September 11, according to Coindesk, Cudis, a wearable device developer based on Solana, completed a $5 million financing round led by Draper Associates. The team said that this investment will increase the production of its ring products to 1 million, posing a challenge to existing companies such as Oura.
It is reported that the CUDIS ring uses the Solana blockchain to protect biometric data, provide gamified health challenges, and is equipped with a personalized AI coach that provides actionable insights and rewards for healthy behaviors.
Other financing
There was 1 other financing with a total amount of US$12 million, accounting for 4.56% of the total financing last week. Including:
Fuse
On September 13, according to official news, renewable energy company Fuse announced the completion of a $12 million strategic financing, led by Multicoin Capital, and participated by Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.
Fuse is a renewable energy company that focuses on providing clean energy solutions to the world through innovative technologies. The company is committed to developing and deploying green energy projects such as solar energy and wind energy to help reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable development. Fuse also uses blockchain technology to optimize energy trading and management and improve the transparency and efficiency of energy use. By promoting the application of renewable energy, Fuse is committed to providing environmentally friendly energy options for the future and helping businesses and individuals use green energy more efficiently.
Fuse plans to use the funds to launch Project Zero, a decentralized renewable energy physical infrastructure network. Currently, Fuse operates utility-scale solar and wind power plants, has distributed energy resources (DER) installations, power trading and power retail businesses, and serves tens of thousands of households as a regulated electricity supplier in the UK.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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