Financing selection for the 24th week of 2023, with Vitalik and StarkWare participating in the Kakarot Pre-Seed round of financing.
According to BlockBeats statistics, there were a total of 17 financing deals last week, which is a slight decrease compared to the previous two weeks. The total amount raised was approximately 159.18 million US dollars, with an average financing amount of 9.3635 million US dollars. The majority of the financing deals were in the digital asset management/payment sector, while other areas such as infrastructure, metaverse/GameFi, NFT/digital fashion, and social media/creator economy also saw an increase in financing deals. However, there were fewer financing deals in the DeFi sector. The following chart shows the financing distribution across different sectors last week:
Metaverse/GameFi
There were a total of 4 financings in the Metaverse/GameFi field, with a total amount of 26.1 million US dollars, accounting for 16.4% of the total financing amount last week.
DeGame
On May 30th, DeGame, a blockchain gaming platform, announced the completion of its second round of funding, raising $6.5 million. The round was led by Folius Ventures, Kenetic Capital, and A&T Capital, with participation from NGC Ventures, Hack VC, Hashkey Capital, Avalanche, Golden Bull, Y2Z Ventures, Collingstar Capital, Sfermion, Bixin Ventures, Assembly Partners, FBG Capital, Lucid Blue, and Ranger Protocol.
In addition, DeGame has launched the Web3 Proof of Contribution (PoC) Platform and will collaborate with blockchain gaming project teams to initiate a genesis airdrop campaign. Individuals, KoLs, guilds, developers, and other contributors who have made significant contributions to the Degame PoC community in the early stages will receive proof of contribution. They will also receive corresponding NFT and token airdrop incentives in the future.
DeGame was founded in June 2021 and completed its first round of financing in the same year, with a total funding amount of $10 million USD.
Fusionist
On June 1st, Binance Labs announced a $6.6 million seed round investment in Web3 gaming company Fusionist, co-led with Web2 gaming giant FunPlus, to accelerate game development and establish the Endurance mainnet ecosystem set to launch in January 2023.
Fusionist is a mecha-themed game with diverse gameplay and detailed graphics, and it's free! It combines simulation management, turn-based combat, and 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) gameplay. Manage, build, and forge mechas for intense battles! In addition, Fusionist plans to enhance user growth and recruit top gaming and Web3 professionals to further strengthen its team's capabilities.
Illuvium
On May 31st, blockchain game Illuvium completed a $10 million financing round, fully participated by Framework Ventures. The new funds will be used to accelerate game development and support its distributed contributor team. The tokens involved in this financing transaction will be locked for two years and will not be included in the pledge, therefore they will not participate in profit distribution.
Illuvium is about to launch its public beta, which includes three interoperable AAA games: Illuvium: Zero (city-building game), Illuvium: Overworld (monster world), and Illuvium: Arena (arena).
Other financing in the Metaverse/GameFi field includes:
On June 1st, esports organization M80 announced the completion of a $3 million seed round of financing, led by ExpertDojo with participation from VT Technology Ventures and Practical Venture Capital. The funds will be used to explore Web3 products and increase M80's influence in esports competitions, content creation, and consumer products.
It is reported that M80 was only established 6 months ago and currently has a professional esports team covering competitive games such as Valorant, Rocket League, Rainbow Six: Siege, and Street Fighter. M80 is exploring DAO and using cryptocurrency for collective voting.
NFT/Digital Fashion
There were a total of 1 financing in the NFT/digital fashion field, with a total amount of 10 million US dollars, accounting for 6.28% of the total financing amount last week.
Tabi
On May 29th, Tabi (formerly Treasureland), an NFT marketplace on the BNB Chain, announced the completion of a $10 million angel round of financing. Animoca Brands, Binance Labs, Draper Dragon, HashKey Capital, Infinity Crypto Ventures, and Youbi Capital participated in this round of financing, with individual investors including Feng Bo (Dragonfly), Riyad AD (Saudi Arabia), and Suji Yan (Mask Network).
This round of financing will be used to develop Tabi's gaming ecosystem and the upcoming on-chain identity protocol.
In addition to NFT trading and Launchpad functionality, Tabi will also convert users' on-chain activities into "experience points" that can be used to redeem future airdrop rewards and profits. Tabi founder Xavier Lee said that there are plans to launch an "NFT Incubation Fund" to incentivize developers to design their products, art, and brands on the BNB Chain.
DeFi
There has been a total of 1 undisclosed financing in the DeFi field.
Prisma Finance
On June 1st, the stablecoin protocol Prisma Finance of LSD completed a round of financing, and the specific amount was not disclosed. Participants in the financing included Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov, Convex Finance founder C2tP, FRAX Finance, Conic Finance, Tetranode, Llama Airforce, CoinGecko founder, OKX Ventures, DeFiDad, MrBlock, Impossible Finance, 0xMaki, GBV, Agnostic Fund, Swell Network founder, The Block's Eden research director Adam Cochran, Ankr Founders, MCEG, and Eric Chen.
Prisma supports the mortgage of various Ethereum liquidity staking derivatives (Frax, Lido, Rocket Pool, Binance, and Coinbase) to mint stablecoins. Additionally, Prisma's excess collateralization mode supports automatic repayment, allowing the use of Ethereum staking rewards to automatically repay debt.
Social/Creative Economy
There were a total of 2 financing deals in the social/creator economy sector, with a total amount exceeding 5 million US dollars, accounting for 3.14% of the total financing amount last week.
MetaZone
On May 31st, MetaZone, a Web3 digital content and application distribution platform, announced the completion of a $3 million seed round of financing. Sfermion and CMT Digital led the investment, with participation from Tess Ventures, IOSG Ventures, IVC (Infinity Ventures Crypto), Polygon Studios, MHC Digital, and LucidBlue Ventures.
MetaZone allows creators and developers to create 3D digital content NFTs and distribute them in the metaverse. Each creator's META (Tokenized application supported by the metaverse) is assigned an NFT that represents its value, ownership, and access rights. These NFTs can be purchased and used to install applications on digital land for the use of the landowner and visitors.
Other financing in the social/creator economy sector includes:
On June 1st, BlockNews completed a $2 million financing round, led by Hong Kong-based Thoughtcast Capital. Part of the new funds will be used to expand BlockNews' operations and technical distribution work in Kuala Lumpur, with the aim of improving project incubation, planning, packaging, going global and overseas legal compliance, as well as Dapp development and other business services.
It is reported that BlockNews' Singapore office opened for business reception at the end of May 2023, and has already achieved good results in offline event management in cities such as Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Infrastructure
There were a total of 6 financing deals in the infrastructure sector, with a total amount of over 29.3 million US dollars, accounting for 18.41% of the total financing amount last week.
Kakarot
On June 2nd, the modular zkEVM Kakarot, built on CairoVM, announced on Twitter that it has completed its Pre-Seed round of financing. The specific amount of financing is unknown, and investors include Vitalik Buterin, StarkWare, Node Guardians co-founder and CEO Sam Benyakoub, LambdaClass, Zama CEO Rand Hindi, Starknet co-founder Fricoben, FuzzingLabs, among others.
Kakarot zkEVM is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) implemented in Cairo. It utilizes STARK proof for provable transactions and blocks, ensuring transparency and security. With its validity proof, Kakarot can inherit security from Ethereum L1 while reducing costs. The first phase of Kakarot aims to introduce EVM into Starknet, allowing developers to seamlessly build and deploy EVM applications. It opens the door to a range of new possibilities and expands the Starknet ecosystem.
zkMe
On May 30th, zkMe, a zero-knowledge identity oracle provider, announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing. Circle Ventures, Spartan Group, CMS Holdings, Fenbushi Capital, NGC Ventures, and Arkstream Capital participated in the funding. zkMe plans to use the new funds to accelerate development and complete mainnet testing within a month, as well as launch customer registration functionality.
zkMe allows users to encrypt their data and use ZKP to prove their statements on their own devices, effectively verifying their eligibility while protecting their privacy and security.
Other financing in the infrastructure sector includes:
On May 29th, TomoChain, an expandable blockchain, announced that it has received strategic investment from Coin98, with the specific amount undisclosed. TomoChain stated that it will use the funding to strengthen its infrastructure, embrace innovative technology, and prepare for the emergence of dApps developed on its network. In the future, Coin98 will be integrated into TomoChain as its official wallet.
On May 30th, Transak, a Web3 startup and fiat aggregator, announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing round. CE Innovation Capital led the investment, with participation from SBI Ven Capital, Sygnum, Azimut, and Third Kind Venture Capital. Transak allows users to trade over 160 cryptocurrencies in any application, website, or Web3 plugin, and provides flexible SDK and white-label API.
On June 2nd, Demox Labs, a cryptocurrency wallet development platform, completed a $4.5 million financing round with HackVC as the lead investor. It is reported that Demox Labs will support the development of various products for the programmable privacy network Aleo. Demox Labs' first product is the privacy-protecting wallet, Leo Wallet, and they have already created a set of smart contract development tools called Truffle.
On June 1st, according to official sources, Japan's cryptocurrency investment company and Shared Capital jointly completed the second round of seed financing for the AI WORLD aggregation platform, with an investment scale of $2.8 million. AI WORLD stated that the participation of Japan's cryptocurrency investment company and Shared Capital has brought strong financial support and strategic partnership to AI WORLD, opening up broader development space and accelerating the layout and realization of AI WORLD's vision in AI+CRYPTO computing nodes.
Digital Asset Management/Payment
There were a total of 1 financing in the field of digital asset management/payment, with a total amount exceeding 52 million US dollars, accounting for 32.67% of the total financing amount last week.
Magic
On May 31st, Web3 wallet service provider Magic announced that it has raised $52 million in a strategic financing led by PayPal Ventures, with participation from Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone, and Volt Capital. The new round of financing brings the company's total financing to over $80 million. To date, Magic has generated over 20 million unique wallets, and its SDK has been used by over 130,000 developers.
It is reported that Magic is a wallet-as-a-service provider that helps enterprises create non-custodial wallets for users to access Web3 instantly. It uses email or social login and eliminates the need for seed phrases and browser extensions, making it indistinguishable from the standard Web2 experience that users are accustomed to.
Other Financing
Other financing totaled 2 transactions, with a total amount of 36.78 million US dollars, accounting for 23.11% of last week's total financing. Including:
On May 29th, TradeWaltz, a blockchain-based trade collaboration platform, completed a financing round of 1.65 billion Japanese yen (approximately 11.76 million US dollars), with Sumitomo Corporation leading the investment. TradeWaltz is able to implement trading applications on the blockchain and improve efficiency through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). Its services include value-added services such as tracking the location of goods and digital currency payments.
On May 31st, the non-profit organization Anoma Foundation, which specializes in blockchain technology, completed a $25 million financing round. The round was led by CMCC Global, with participation from NGC and others. Anoma Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Switzerland, responsible for overseeing Anoma (a full-stack architecture that helps developers build dApps) and Namada (a Layer 1 blockchain that allows for private transactions). Potential use cases for the Anoma architecture include decentralized exchange platforms (DEX) and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
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