The 14th week of 2023 financing highlights, a16z led the investment in AAA game developer CCP Games
According to BlockBeats, the total number of deals raised last week was unchanged from the previous week, with a total of about $353.15 million and an average funding amount of $50.45 million. Among them, capital management/payment is dominant, Metaverse /GameFi has relatively high funding, infrastructure and other areas have increased, DeFi and social/creator economy have decreased, and NFT/ digital fashion has decreased. The following chart shows the financing proportion of each sector last week:
Metaverse /GameFi
There were 4 rounds in the Metaverse /GameFi space, totaling over $108.5 million, which accounted for 30.72% of last week's total.
CCP Games
Why we're interested: Another AAA game developer is coming in to create a new blockchain game based on EVE Online.
BlockBeats 消息，3 月 21 日，著名游戏开发商 CCP Games 的 3A 级区块链游戏项目完成 4000 万美元融资，a16z 领投，Makers Fund、Bitkraft、Kingsway Capital、Nexon、Hashed 等参投。 CCP Games 是冰岛最大的游戏工作室，也是著名游戏「EVE Online」的开发商，于 2018 年 9 月被韩国游戏厂商 Pearl Abyss 以 4.25 亿美元的价格收购。「EVE Online」发行于 2003 年，拥有超过 900 万名玩家，月均活跃玩家数约为 17 万人。截至 2021 年 8 月，该游戏通过玩家付费订阅「Omega 账户」每月能获取超过 120 万美元的收入。
CCP Games collaborated with Tezos Blockchain in November 2021, Release "Kill Certificates" NFT to reward players who complete the final kill in EVE Online's "Alliance Tournament XVII" game event. However, in April 2022, CCP Games announced that it would not be bringing NFT technology to EVE Online.
The $40 million raised will be used to develop a new blockchain game based on EVE's IP. Investors in the new game project did not buy into CCP Games or its parent company, Pearl Abyss.
LandVault
Why you should care: The biggest "metauniverse land developer" has partnered with many of the top IRL brands, including Hershey's, Heineken, L 'Oreal and mastercard.
BlockBeats 消息，3 月 23 日，元宇宙开发公司 LandVault 宣布完成 3700 万美元新一轮融资，The Sandbox、软银和 Kingsway Capital 领投，HodlCo、Gemini Frontier Fund 等参投。此前，LandVault 在 2021 年 11 月完成了 2500 万美元的 B 轮融资。 LandVault 成立于 2017 年。过去 2 年中，LandVault 已经与 Hershey's、喜力、欧莱雅和万事达卡等众多顶级 IRL 品牌合作，帮助这些品牌在 Decentraland 或 The Sandbox 上构建品牌主题元宇宙。公司至今已拥有超过 300 个元宇宙项目，团队规模超过 120 人。
The latest round of funding will be used to continue LandVault's expansion into the Web3 industry and to build "hubs across three continents."
Pixelcraft Studios
Why we're interested: The biggest GameFi funding round of 2023, NFT+ Games +DeFi
On March 21, Pixelcraft Studios, the development team behind Aave Eco-NFT project Aavegotchi, raised $30 million through Token sales. The current round of sales began on September 14, 2020, and the GHST Token sale is structured as DAICO (Decentralized Autonomous IC0, a decentralized fundraising model). AavegotchiDAO voted to terminate the sale due to uncertainty over the stability of DAI Stablecoin.
The funding will be split among community participants, with Aavegotchi's lead developer Pixelcraft Studios receiving 25% ($7.5 million), DAO Treasury receiving the remaining $22.5 million, All funds are earmarked for development, marketing and liquidity provisions or agreement incentives.
Aavegotchi 生态系统结合了游戏、DeFi 和 NFT，为用户创造了更极致的游戏体验。玩家可以购买和定制 Aavegotchis——具有独特特征和能力的幽灵数字宠物。这些宠物可以用来与其他玩家战斗或参与 Aavegotchi 宇宙（The Gotchiverse）中的各种游戏和活动。 Aavegotchi 2023 年路线图包括由 Polygon Supernets 提供支持的全新游戏区块链（GHST 作为 Gas Token），新的跨平台游戏，以及 Aavegotchi 协议的完全链上去中心化。
The rest of the Metaverse /GameFi funding includes:
3 月 22 日，元宇宙营销平台 Gamitronics 宣布完成 150 万美元战略融资，Big Viking Games 参投，该公司首席执行官 Rajat Ojha 透露目前已启动 pre-A 轮融资，预计将在未来几个月内完成。 据悉，Gamitronics 推出的元宇宙营销平台 PartyNite 主要帮助品牌商吸引受众，通过出售虚拟地块帮助品牌商在虚拟世界中投放广告，新筹集资金将帮助该公司拓展加拿大和美国业务并进军 P2E 链游市场。
DeFi
A total of $1.5 million was raised in the DeFi sector, representing 0.42 per cent of last week's total.
Megaton Finance
Reason to care: Megato Finance is backed by TON Ecosystem and recently announced 40+ partners
BlockBeats 消息，3 月 21 日，The Open Network（TON）生态 AMM 协议 Megaton Finance 完成 150 万美元种子轮融资，The Open Network（TON）生态孵化加速器 TONcoin.Fund 领投，Cypher Capital、First Stage Labs、Orbs、MEXC Ventures 等参投。
Megaton Finance's AMM (automated market maker) DEX business model combined with DeFi ecology, with its scalable multi-chain economy and the unique features of TON's network, can also indirectly increase TON's usage.
Megaton Finance 由韩国区块链技术公司 OZYS 开发，OZYS 开发的跨链平台 Orbit Bridge 已将 TON 连接到基于 EVM/NEVM 的多链社区，并通过开发 TON 的封装协议 WTON Gateway 提高了 TONcoin (TON) 的实用性。
Social/creator economy
There was one round in the social sector, with a total amount of $310,000, accounting for 0.09% of last week's total.
SphereTrax
Why we care: Creator first, democratization of music creation
BlockBeats 消息，3 月 22 日，Web3 音乐创作者平台 SphereTrax 完成由 Jenson Funding Partners 投资的 25 万英镑（约 30.68 万美元）融资，以支持其让创作者获得音乐控制权。该轮融资将用于扩大 SphereTrax 团队。
SphereTrax provides a powerful search engine that ensures the discovery of new music, thus enabling artists to manage their careers without having to rely on record labels to increase their visibility. To ensure that artists are paid for their creations, the platform can make payments via crypto.
SphereTrax is powered by a blockchain system that allows creators to keep up to 75% of their royalties, and it uses Bitcoin SV, which supports instant payment. SphereTrax is expected to launch on April 1 with more than 10,000 tracks and is accepting applications from composers.
infrastructure
There were five financing deals in the infrastructure sector, totaling more than $33 million, accounting for 9.34 percent of last week's total.
Turnkey
Why we're interested: Sequoia Capital, Coinbase, strong background in financing and founding teams
BlockBeats news: On March 22, crypto startup Turnkey closed a $7.5 million funding round with input from Variant, Sequoia Capital and Coinbase. Turnkey's team members met while setting up Coinbase Custody, a cryptocurrency custodian, and were once responsible for guarding cryptocurrencies over $200B. Turnkey wants to build itself into managing private keys and actively participating in products on the chain, as well as reshaping the private key management landscape.
Turnkey can programmatically initiate a private key for an enterprise or user, sign any transaction through an API without exposing a user's private key, set fully flexible permissions around specific product requirements, build a security posture that balances risk and availability in the way users want, and create self-hosted or fully hosted products on the same infrastructure. Turnkey is the easiest way to securely generate and manage private keys, making it very easy for anyone to build cryptocurrencies, while Turnkey is building the right infrastructure to help developers of cryptocurrencies.
Turnkey is built on a minimal, immutable and deterministic operating system, designed for environments that require paranoia and accountability. This gives users control over their own keys while providing organization-level security. Turnkey aims to be a developer-first tool that allows users to generate hundreds of wallets and sign thousands of transactions on any chain, all with flexible, programmable permissions to ensure users sign only what they want.
Particle Network
Reason for concern: ABCDE led the investment, the application of MPC-TSS technology to cancel mnemonic words
BlockBeats: On March 24th, Particle Network, a Web3 development platform, announced that it had completed a $7 million funding round led by ABCDE Capital. Animoca Brands, Longhash Ventures, ArkStream Capital, GSR Ventures, OP Crypto and HashKey are among the investors. Last May, Particle Network raised $1.5 million in Pre-Seed funding from several high-profile investors.
Particle Network 是业内首家应用 MPC-TSS 技术的公司，取消了 Web3 采用的助记词和 gas 费门槛。Particle Network 的核心产品是登录和钱包中间件解决方案，可帮助开发人员将用户友好的 Web3 身份验证解决方案集成到他们的去中心化应用程序中。Particle Network 的产品可以使最终用户可以通过现有的加密钱包，或使用电话号码或社交媒体账户登录，这将自动创建一个链上非托管钱包。
Particle Network's tools are multi-chained for all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains as well as Solana and Tron, and are scheduled to launch on Near this month and Aptos next month. In addition to login and wallet middleware, Particle Network also provides middleware products such as Node service, data API, NFT full stack API/IPFS service, etc. In the future, the Particle Network aims to be a full-stack middleware platform for developers, helping them focus on building business scenarios.
Particle Network will release its MPC+AA Wallet solution in April, providing a cross-platform SDK to form a rich product matrix of MPC+EOA and MPC+AA wallets to meet different project needs. Since the product launch in late October 2022, Particle Network has worked with hundreds of Web3 projects, including traditional gaming giants like FunPlus and Perfect World, as well as emerging Web3 projects like Era7 and Ultiverse. Particle Network has recently completed a code audit at CertiK to open source its core code and provide a range of open source tools.
Particle Network has a subscription model and is using a software-as-a-service model to generate revenue, charging projects or developers based on monthly active users. 2,000 MAU is a fee point, below 2000 MAU is all free, and beyond that it will pay per MAU per month.
Radix
Reason for concern: Babylon Main Net Q2 is online, with more than 50 projects committed to building applications on it.
BlockBeats news: On March 23, Layer1 public Radix announced that it had completed $10 million in funding, which was fully backed by DWF Labs with a post-investment valuation of $400 million. Radix chief executive Piers Ridyard said the DWF had provided $8 million in funding and the remaining $2 million would be provided in the near future. This follows the completion of a $12.7 million funding round by Radix in 2021 and the issuance of XRD Tokens to the community that same year.
Radix was launched as a blockchain research project in 2013, which was corporatized in 2017 and continues to be developed to this day. Between 2013 and 2017, the project collected 3,000 Bitcoins from the community. Piers Ridyard, CEO of Radix, said that not wanting to duplicate existing technology was the reason for the project's nearly 10-year study cycle and that Radix will have its own unique consensus system, execution environment and programming language, And Scrypto, the programming language for Radix, is "easier to use" than Solidity.
Radix is expected to launch its mainnet, called Babylon, in the second quarter of this year. Piers Ridyard said there have been more than 50 projects working on building apps on Radix, spanning markets from DeFi to NFT. Radix launched Olympia Mainnet in July 2021, but that Olympia Mainnet only enabled users to create wallets with transfer/pledge $XRD on the network. Babylon Main Network will be released as the final version of the Radix technology Stack, and users will then be able to obtain the complete usage experience brought by numerous DApps.
The remaining financing for infrastructure includes:
Aspecta, the AI-powered, developer-focused digital identity ecosystem, announced on March 22 that it had completed a $3.5 million seed round and announced plans for a global open beta of its flagship product Aspecta ID. The Aspecta seed round consists of two stages: A and B. Phase A will be completed in April 2022 with the participation of Zhenfund, Qiji Chuantan (formerly YC China), UpHonest Capital, Yale Alumni Fund, etc. Phase B will be completed in November 2022. With participation from HashKey Capital, Foresight Ventures, SNZ Holding, Infinity Ventures Crypto and others, it raised $3.5 million.
In addition, Aspecta has received strategic investment and donation support from Galxe, CyberConnect, Mask Network, P12 and other project parties and ecology. It is reported that Aspecta is a digital identity ecology that spans Web2 and Web3. Aspecta ID, its core product, is based on cloud and on-chain data, and applies AI to create a digital identity with controllable users and valuable depth. Aspecta ID focuses on developers to showcase, document, and explore three core capabilities that combine protocols and systems to drive a digital identity ecosystem and create a new paradigm for data ownership, interoperability, and intelligent applications. Currently, Aspecta ID has more than 130,000 pre-registered users, and as of March 2023, some of these users have activated a private Alpha Launch with more than 200 developers worldwide. The Aspecta ID is now on a public Beta Launch and is expected to reach more than 10,000 developers worldwide.
On March 24, Metaverse infrastructure developer Hadean closed a $5 million funding round, The funding round was led by Ericsson Ventures, Metrea Discovery, VU Venture Partners, Sanctor Capital and Tirta Ventures. Hadean said it will accelerate the development of its cloud-based meta-universe solution. Before that, last September, Hadean closed A $30 million Series A funding round led by Molten Ventures, Fortnite developer Epic Games, 2050 Capital, Alumni Ventures, Aster Capital, Entrepreneur First and InQTel are participating.
Digital Asset management/Payments
There were 7 financing deals in the digital asset management/payment sector, totaling more than $137.05 million, accounting for 38.81% of the total financing last week.
Gryfyn
BlockBeats: On March 21, encrypted hosted wallet Gryfyn raised $7.5 million in funding, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures, Lavender Hill Capital Partners, Mind Fund, Animoca Ventures, LeadBlock Partners, Angel Hub, Brinc, and angel investor Gabby Dizon. Gryfyn is a joint venture between Animoca Brands and Hex Trust to provide hosted encrypted wallets. Arnoldo Concepcin, co-Chief Operating Officer of Animoca Brands, has been announced as Gryfyn's CEO.
BitKeep
According to BlockBeats, on March 22, Bitget invested $30 million in crypto wallet BitKeep at a valuation of $300 million and became its controlling shareholder. In an interview with The Block, Bitget managing director Gracy Chen said the controlling stake was well above 51 percent, and that Bitget had invested in BitKeep in 2021 and 2022 without public information, BitKeep will continue to operate as an independent entity. As previously reported, in May 2022, BitKeep raised $15 million in Series A funding at a valuation of $100 million.
Metatime
BlockBeats 消息，3 月 21 日，土耳其加密货币交易平台 Metatime 宣布完成 1100 万美元种子轮融资，投资方包括土耳其投资公司 Yildiz Tekno GSYO 和多个未披露的天使投资人。 Metatime 公司的有限合伙人是一些土耳其大型公司，包括 Halkbank、Turk Telekom 和 Kalyon Holding。Metatime 联合创始人兼首席执行官 Yusuf Sevim 表示，Yildiz 投资 15 万美元购买了 Metatime 1% 的股权，其余的资金（1100 万美元）是由天使投资人在 Token 融资中提供的。共有 33 位未公开身份的天使投资人购买了 MetaCoin (MTC) Token，1 亿枚 MTC 以 5 美分的价格售出，另外 1 亿枚 MTC 以 6 美分的价格售出。
Metatime, which was founded in 2021 and has yet to launch, is preparing to launch multiple products and services, including a cryptocurrency trading platform, wallet, NFT marketplace, native blockchain and stablecoin, and currently has 208 employees. Yusuf Sevim said he and Hys Sahin, another Metatime co-founder, had previously invested $10 million in the company. Metatime's trading platform, blockchain, stablecoin and MTC Token will go live on November 11. The NFT Marketplace and Wallet are expected to launch in the first quarter of next year.
The remaining financing in the digital asset management/payments space includes:
On March 21, Crossover Markets, a Digital asset trading firm, closed a $6.35 million seed round of funding from Two Sigma, Flow Traders, Laser Digital and Wintermute Ventures. Crossover Markets is launching CrossX, a cryptocurrency trading platform.
On March 21, Auros Global, a crypto trading and market-making firm, was released from a court-supervised provisional liquidation following a major debt restructuring, Raised $17 million in funding led by Vivienne Court Trading, a traditional high-frequency trading firm, and Bit Digital, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company, Other investors include Trovio, an asset manager and blockchain technology developer; Primal Capital, a venture Capital firm; Epoch Capital, a trading firm; and some Optiver traders.
Contango Digital Assets has raised $1.2 million in a seed round from family offices, venture capital and high-net-worth angel investors, Web3 venture capital firm Contango Digital Assets announced on March 24. Contango has previously deployed more than $7 million to more than 50 Web3 startups, These include Andromeda Protocol, Coinweb, Kado, NuNet, Nakamoto Games, Astra Protocol, and more. Contango is currently building an SaaS platform that will add transparency to the complex private capital market and level the playing field for angel investors in the Web3 private investment space.
Raisin, a German fintech investor, announced on March 24 that it had completed a €60 million Series E funding round with private equity fund Catalyst. Raisin launched a managed cryptocurrency portfolio service "Raisin Crypto" in September 2022 to help users invest in cryptocurrencies in a low-cost way, Crypto assets currently in the portfolio include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, Polygon, and Avalanche. In addition to crypto investments, Raisin offers ETFs, retirement financial products, and private equity investments.
Other financing
There were two other financing deals totaling $2.34 million, or 0.9% of last week's total. Include:
On March 21, AI-based Web3 platform OP3N closed A $28 million Series A funding round at a $100 million valuation, led by Animoca Brands, Dragonfly Capital, SuperScrypt, Connect Ventures of Creative Artists Agency and New Enterprise Associates, Republic Crypto, Avalanche's Blizzard Funds, Galaxy Digital and Warner Music Interactive, GSR Markets, The Spartan Group, BRV Capital Management and NBA player Russell Westbrook and other participants. The new funds will be used to further develop its applications and expand its leadership team.
OP3N's chat product Superapp aims to bridge the gap between Web 2.0 and Web3 by extending blockchain and decentralization technologies to the Web 2.0 friendly interface. The application will be able to add audio, video, and mixed media content to on-chain interactions so that users can have a "one-stop" experience.
On March 21, Ethereum-based carbon tracker Carbonable closed a $1.2 million funding round led by Ethereal Ventures and La Poste Ventures, Carbonable is designed to use the public Ethereum blockchain to track carbon contributions and help prevent greenwashing (" greenwashing "is when companies make false, exaggerated, or misleading disclosures about their environmental obligations or contributions). Carbonable uses StarkNet, an Ethereum extension built by Starkware, which is also an investor in the seed round, to monitor the life cycle of carbon credits.
On March 22, fintech company Heartstocks closed a €5 million funding round backed by Vanagon Ventures. Heartstocks focuses on the use of blockchain, a technology that turns collectibles into investment objects, tokenized securities to facilitate investment in digital stocks.
On March 22, ALT DRX, a digital real estate trading platform, closed a $3.6 million seed round of funding consisting of $1.6 million in equity and $2 million in callable mezzanine debt to invest in real estate assets, The participants include Indian law firms, prestigious family offices, start-up founders and unnamed executives from Singapore Development Bank, Ernst & Young, HSBC, Volvo, Salesforce and others. ALT DRX is a start-up based in Bangalore, India, that allows owners of real estate assets to dematerialize their real estate ownership and convert it into tokenized, tradeable digital assets.
On March 22, alternative (non-traditional) Internet developer tomi closed a $40 million funding round led by DWF Labs, Ticker Capital, Piha Equities and Japanese crypto investor Hirokado Kohji. The tomi project was launched in 2022 as a decentralized cloud computing network with the aim of creating a version of the Internet managed by a decentralized autonomous Organization (DAO).
On March 21, Crossover Markets, a Digital asset trading firm, closed a $6.35 million seed round of funding from Two Sigma, Flow Traders, Laser Digital and Wintermute Ventures. Crossover Markets is launching CrossX, a cryptocurrency trading platform.
Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:
Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
Related Articles
