Weekly Funding Report | 17 Projects Secured Funding, with a disclosed total funding amount of approximately $120 million (7.10-7.16)
According to incomplete statistics from Odaily, there were a total of 17 blockchain financing events announced from July 10th to July 16th, an increase from the previous week's data (13 events). The disclosed total financing amount is approximately $120 million, a significant increase from the previous week's data ($42.8353 million).
Last week, the project with the highest investment amount was Solaris, a German financial technology company involved in digital token business ($41.8 million), followed by the music NFT platform Sound.xyz ($20 million). In addition, the liquidity collateral protocol developer Alluviall of Liquid Collective attracted some attention with its impressive group of investors.
The following are the specific financing events (Note: 1. Sorted by publicly disclosed amount; 2. Excluding fund-raising and M&A events; 3. * indicates "traditional" industry companies involved in blockchain-related business):
On July 11th, German fintech company Solaris (formerly known as Solarisbank) completed a Series F financing round with a valuation of $1.6 billion. The financing of €38 million (equivalent to $41.8 million) will be used to expand its banking-as-a-service business. Solaris described this financing as the end of its Series F round but refused to disclose the specific investors' names, only stating that it was an internal financing round (meaning all investors are existing investors). Solaris also did not reveal the total amount of funds it wants to raise.
According to reports, the company has previously raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build its embedded finance platform. Solaris' business covers around 180 different APIs, including categories such as banking and card services, payments, loans, identity verification, and digital currencies. In addition, Solaris is used by companies such as Samsung, American Express, and Coinbase to provide various financial services to their customers.
Music NFT platform Sound.xyz completes $20 million Series A financing, led by a16z Crypto
On July 12th, music NFT platform Sound.xyz completed a $20 million Series A financing, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Palm Tree Crew, A* Capital, Sound Ventures, Collab +Currency, Scalar Capital, Snoop Dogg, Ryan Tedder, and Tay Keith. Co-founder David Greenstein said, "This funding will provide us with resources to grow the team and further realize our vision." He added that Sound.xyz has not disclosed its valuation at the moment.
In addition, Sound.xyz has also opened its Web3 minting tool. It allows artists to mint and sell music in the form of NFTs. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain and deploys the ERC-721 A token standard.
On July 11th, Liquid Collective developer Alluviall announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing led by Ethereal Ventures and Variant, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Kraken, and Avon Ventures, a subsidiary of Fidelity.
Alluviall is a company registered in Delaware, and the Liquid Collective Foundation is registered in the Cayman Islands. The team is distributed in the United States, Europe, and Dubai. The company plans to use the new financing to develop the team, especially in engineering, continue product development, and expand its staking services to other blockchain networks.
Alluviall is the developer of Liquid Collective, which is a protocol that supports Ethereum liquidity staking. Unlike competitors such as Lido and Rocket Pool, which offer "staking-as-a-service" products, Alluviall is catering to the needs of institutions and traditional finance, and larger participants are expected to enter this field.
On July 12th, decentralized trading platform Ambient Finance completed a $6.5 million seed round financing, led by BlockTower Capital, with participation from Jane Street, Circle, Tensai Capital, Naval, Yunt Capital, Susa Ventures, Quantstamp, and Hypotenuse Labs. Individual investors included Julian, co-founder of Ribbon Finance, and Steven, a researcher from The Block. This round of financing will be used for research and development.
On July 11th, NFT lending protocol Gondi announced its launch on Tuesday and completed a $5.35 million seed round financing, with joint leadership from Hack.vc and Foundation Capital, and participation from Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, and 6th Man Ventures.
According to the introduction, Gondi allows lenders and borrowers to leverage the value of blue-chip NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Lenders can offer their NFTs on the platform at a fixed interest rate, while borrowers can use the NFTs as collateral or for NFT-based financial applications.
Privacy solution Silent Protocol completes $5 million financing, led by Sora Ventures
On July 16th, privacy solution Silent Protocol completed a $5 million financing led by Sora Ventures. The new funding will be used to expand its network beyond Web3, with the goal of building a secure layer compliant with the EU's MiCA regulations for its applications and facilitating collaboration with traditional institutions.
Silent Protocol is a startup founded by researchers from TÜBİTAK BİLGEM, Turkey's leading technology and science center dedicated to enhancing the country's technological and scientific capabilities. Silent Protocol focuses on developing scalable privacy layers for existing applications, eliminating the need to exchange liquidity from existing pools.
Blockchain game MetaCene secures $5 million in seed funding led by Hash Global and SevenX Ventures
On July 14th, blockchain MMORPG game MetaCene completed a $5 million seed round of financing, with Hash Global and SevenX Ventures leading the investment. WeMade, Emurgo, MixMarvel DAO Ventures, Sinovation Ventures, and LK Venture also participated.
MetaCene is developing a blockchain-based game featuring a post-apocalyptic world with surreal elements. Players can redefine game civilization using various NFTs.
On July 12th, NFT ticketing solution GET Protocol completed a $4.5 million seed round financing. Flow Ventures led the round with participation from Animoca Brands, Redbeard Ventures, Funfair Ventures, and co-founder of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget.
The company stated that "the tools already using GET Protocol have issued over 4 million blockchain-based tickets for artists such as Ne-Yo, Gucci Mane, Lewis Capaldi, and Louis C.K." These tickets were facilitated through "integrated ticketing companies worldwide" and have not been acquired or resold outside of the terms of sale.
On July 11th, cryptocurrency network security startup Olympix announced the completion of a $4.3 million seed round financing. Boldstart Ventures led the round with participation from Robot Ventures, Shrug Capital, Konstantin Richter from Blockdaemon, and Tarun Chitra from Gauntlet Networks.
Olympix is focused on building an AI-driven toolset for constructing a cryptographic network security stack and is currently in the alpha testing phase.
Web3 asset management platform Narval raises $4 million in seed round, led by BlockTower VC
On July 10th, French startup Narval announced the completion of a $4 million seed funding round, led by BlockTower VC, with participation from a16z, Fabric Ventures, Bpifrance, Cherry Crypto, Motier Ventures, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, and The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget.
The company is building its "Web3 wallet adoption platform" to provide organizations with a more secure way to interact with digital assets. It will help organizations manage and leverage their cryptocurrency, NFTs, and other assets. Narval plans to use the funding to hire engineers and designers, as well as continue platform development and strengthen marketing efforts.
On July 11th, AI-based encryption project Giza announced the completion of a $3 million pre-seed funding round, with CoinFund leading the round and participation from StarkWare, TA Ventures, and Arrington Capital. Giza CEO Fran Algaba declined to comment on the implicit valuation of the company.
Founded in October last year by Cem Dagdelen, Fran Algaba, and Renç Korzay, the company aims to integrate artificial intelligence into the blockchain field and attempt to combine zero-knowledge proof technology with AI to complete blockchain verification transactions with less computational power.
With new funding, Giza is expected to launch its infrastructure next week and fully launch its platform by 2023.
On July 11th, automated customer support company AwesomeQA completed a $2.8 million seed round of financing, led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Uniswap Labs Ventures, and others.
It is reported that the company utilizes artificial intelligence to automatically answer user questions in Discord and Telegram channels. AwesomeQA plans to use the new funding to expand its team and improve its custom-trained AI models. It also provides customer support for over 60 Web3 companies, including AAVE, Dune, and Scroll.
The company aims to "become the operating system for communities, providing a seamless platform for businesses to establish, support, and grow their communities with the help of artificial intelligence."
On July 14th, according to official sources, the pledger liquidity release protocol Ion Protocol completed a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing. It was jointly led by Portal Ventures and SevenX Ventures, with participation from BanklessVC, HASHCIB, Foresight Ventures, Smrti Labs, Maelstrom Fund, Breed VC, Everstake Pool, Punk Ventures DAO, Builder VC, and EthHub co-founders Anthony Sassano (sassal.eth) and Syncracy Capital co-founder Ryan Watkins. Ion Protocol is a lending platform designed to support future pledging and re-pledging assets. The protocol is a CDP issuer that allows users to deposit assets supported by validators (including LST, re-pledging positions, etc.) into their collateral vault and mint the stablecoin allETH, which is priced based on deposited ETH.
On July 11th, the Earth Observation Distributed Network (GEODNET) completed a $1.5 million funding round with Borderless Capital as the lead investor. GEODNET combines artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and blockchain to provide reliable centimeter-level positioning accuracy for applications such as drones, robotic vehicles, augmented reality, and IoT/mobile devices.
On July 16th, MetaVerse brand marketing company Karta announced the completion of a $1.1 million seed funding round. GameTech Ventures led the investment, with participation from Toikido, Sports Loft, former Hipgnosis executive Amy Thomson, Sports Loft CEO Charlie Greenwood, UK Finance Chairman Robert Wigley, Powster founder and CEO Ste Thompson, and BigIdeas Group. The new funding will be used to help Karta recruit talent and expand its team and operations.
According to reports, Karta, founded in 2021 by Tony Barnes and Erik Londré, is headquartered in London, UK. It provides MetaVerse marketing services for brands and bands on platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite, and Decentraland. The company has collaborated with brands such as Unilever, Amazon Music, and McDonald's in creating advertising and marketing opportunities in the MetaVerse.
On July 13th, social application Primal, based on Nostr, announced the completion of a $1 million seed funding round with participation from Ten 31, Hivemind Ventures, and other funds. Primal's social application suite combines a Twitter-like interface and the open-source Nostr protocol, which prioritizes resistance to censorship, account ownership, and decentralized construction.
Crust Network secures millions of dollars in funding from DWF Labs
On July 10th, decentralized storage solution Crust Network announced that it has secured funding of millions of dollars from DWF Labs. The new capital will enable Crust Network to further enhance its infrastructure and expand its business in the field of decentralized storage. Crust Network announced that it will launch EVM storage services on July 17th, providing decentralized storage solutions for EVM-based blockchains.
