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Reviewing 28 projects that received top-tier crypto VC investments in June: What are the airdrops and opportunities available?

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Source: Bai Ze Research Institute

Observing the latest investments in the encryption VC industry can help you identify market trends and discover new trends early. Which projects in which tracks have VCs been bullish on recently? This article summarizes 28 projects that received top encryption VC investments in June to help readers quickly understand. It should be noted that none of the following projects or opinions should be construed as investment advice. DYOR.

One, DeFi

1、SafeBay

June 6th, 2023

Seed round: $111.5 million.

Investors: Big Sky Capital, Borderless Capital, AXL Ventures, Algorand Foundation, and Angel.

SafeBay Finance is a DeFi vault platform developed by Kilde, a Singapore-based digital private debt platform. It is built on the Algorand network and provides compliant tokenized securities and credit products with different risk profiles. Its goal is to help blockchain-native companies effectively manage their short-term financial assets and is essentially an RWA (Real World Asset) tokenization project.

Currently, DApps and token sales have not yet been launched, and official promotion is not active, with relatively few followers.

2、Connext

June 14, 2023

Strategic investment: $7.5 million USD.

Investors: Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, NGC Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Polygon Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Hashed, etc.

Connext is a cross-chain protocol that can be used for fast and trustless communication between different blockchain networks, enabling asset transfers between blockchains and contract work across EVM chains. Use cases include building DApps focused on cross-chain liquidity, cross-chain NFTs, and cross-chain governance.

Currently, Connext has processed over 1.2 million transactions. The Connext protocol has been integrated into over 30 platforms, including Metamask, Planet IX, and DODO.

3、Concordia

June 17th, 2023

Seed round: $4 million.

Lead investors: Kraken Ventures, Tribe Capital.

Other investors: Cypher Capital, Saison Capital.

Concordia is a multi-chain collateral management protocol designed to simplify cross-chain risk of funds. Users can collateralize funds on one chain and borrow or transfer funds from other chains. Currently, the first lending product based on the Concordia protocol, Superposition, has been launched on the Aptos network testnet.

Note: Currently, the TVL on Superposition is less than $500,000. Please be aware of the risks when participating.

4、Tapioca DAO

June 17th, 2023

Seed round: $6 million.

Investors: LayerZero Labs, Fisher8 Capital, Parc Capital, Jones DAO, DCFGod, etc.

TapiocaDAO is a full-chain DeFi platform based on the LayerZero universal messaging network, spanning over 17 EVM and non-EVM chains, aimed at reducing liquidity fragmentation issues. The platform offers various functional products, such as Singularity for lending (based on Sushiswap's Kashi), Yield Box for token treasury (BentoBox V2), and decentralized over-collateralized stablecoin USDO.

Currently, TapiocaDAO has launched its testnet and the official team has confirmed the release of its native token TAP. Therefore, early testnet users may receive airdrops (this is just speculation).

• Connect your wallet and switch the network to testnets such as Arbitrum Goerli and Polygon Mumbai.

• Obtain testnet tokens on the platform.

• Go to the "Mint" option to test the USDO minting function.

• Test lending function

• Test token cross-chain functionality in the "Teleport" option.

5、Earn Network

June 21, 2023

6、Maverick Protocol

7、AlloyX

The current TVL is approximately 5 million US dollars.

8、Bit2Me

June 15th, 2023

Three, NFT

9、Spinamp

June 2, 2023

Amount: 120 million US dollars.

Lead investor: PTC Crypto.

Other investors: 1kx, Archetype, NoiseDAO, Coop Records, Fire Eyes DAO, top music NFT collector DegenDavinci, Chief Growth Officer of Lens Protocol Christina.lens, etc.

• The artist's personal profile showcases their music NFTs released on all platforms.

• In the future, interactive features (social) between artists and communities will be launched online.

10、Dew Drops

June 6, 2023

Before the seed round: $1.5 million USD

Other investors: VaynerFund, Polygon, Ruttenberg Gordon Investments, Slow Ventures.

11、DGPals

Strategic investment: undisclosed.

12、Tegro

June 26th, 2023

Seed round: undisclosed.

Investors: Polygon Ventures and other private institutions.

NFT20 is an ERC-20 token supported by a 1:1 deposit of ERC-721 and ERC-1155 NFTs. Essentially, it is a fractionalized NFT. By holding NFT20, one owns a corresponding portion of the original NFT. The advantage of this approach is that it enables easy cross-chain and multi-asset exchange (with other NFTs' NFT20 trading), as well as liquidity mining (to increase liquidity).

Currently, Tegro is holding a trading and earning points activity, where participants can exchange their points for prizes such as the native token TGR, NFTs, and USDT.

13、Hook Protocol

June 28, 2023

Amount: 3 million US dollars.

Lead investor: Collab+Currency, Lattice.

Other investors: Slow, Sfermion, Maven11, Contrary, etc.

Hook Protocol is a type of NFT call option protocol, allowing users to create call options for any NFT they hold.

Assuming I have created a call option for my Bored Ape NFT. The NFT is worth 100 ETH today.

Xiao Ming believes that the value of the NFT will increase next month, but he does not have 100 ETH to purchase the NFT. Therefore, Xiao Ming bought an option from me for 5 ETH with a strike price of 120 ETH and a 30-day expiration date. There may be three possible scenarios:

•If the value of the NFT is less than 120 ETH after one month, Xiao Ming's option will be worthless. At this point, I will keep the 5 ETH earned from selling the option.

•If the value of NFT is higher than 120 ETH but less than 125 ETH after one month, Xiao Ming still suffers losses in this transaction, and the value of the option is between 0-5 ETH.

•If the value of the NFT is higher than 125 ETH after one month, Xiao Ming made a big profit through this transaction (NFT price - 125 ETH). For example, if the NFT is worth 130 ETH, Xiao Ming earns 5 ETH, achieving a 100% return in one month. However, if Xiao Ming chooses to buy the NFT, he can only make a profit of 30%.

Therefore, the Hook Protocol is actually useful for both active trading and passive holding. NFT holders can generate income by selling call options, while traders can establish long positions by investing only a small amount of ETH in call options, which is more capital efficient.

Four, Web3 Services

14、Nori

June 6th, 2023

Amount: 6.25 million US dollars.

Investors: Toyota Ventures, M13, Placeholder, Cargill.

Nori is an early Web3 service company founded in 2017 and the first on-chain carbon offset trading platform. By allowing suppliers to mint NRT (an NFT that represents Nori's carbon offset tons) on the Ethereum network, Nori has laid the foundation for a more transparent carbon market. Companies with carbon offset demands can find suitable suppliers on the platform's marketplace and engage in peer-to-peer transactions, purchasing the supplier's NRT using payment methods such as USDC.

Currently, Nori has migrated to the Polygon network, significantly reducing the gas fees for each transaction.

15、Meanwhile

June 6th, 2023

Two seed rounds: $19 million USD.

Lead investor: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former Stripe Issuing executive Lachy Groom, Gradient Ventures.

Other investors: Muoro Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Hudson Structured Capital Management, etc.

Meanwhile is the first and only life insurance company that is completely priced in Bitcoin, only accepting BTC as premiums and paying out all claims in BTC. The company's executives and some investors believe that BTC is becoming a global store of value and functional currency.

Currently, you can join the waiting list on the platform's official website.

16、Lens Protocol

June 8th, 2023

Amount: 15 million US dollars.

Lead investor: IDEO CoLab Ventures.

Other investors: Tencent, Kraken Ventures, Delphi Digital, Ceneral Catalyst, Blockchain Capital, PTC Crypto, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams, OpenSea co-founder Alex Atallah, entrepreneur Balaji, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, etc.

Last May, Lens Protocol, a Web3 social media platform built by the veteran DeFi lending protocol Aave, went live on the Polygon network and has been in operation for over a year. However, its daily active address count of less than 3,000 has been controversial.

Despite this, there are already hundreds of applications developed or integrated based on Lens, covering different fields such as tools, DAO, community, games, videos, etc., in addition to official products. The ecosystem is in a state of flourishing diversity.

Believing that with the support of various leaders in the encryption industry and the recent launch of the V2 version, Lens will be closer to its "Web3 Social Kingdom" dream in this round of financing.

17、HyperPlay

June 8th, 2023

A Round: $12 million USD

Lead investor: Griffin Gaming Partners, BITKRAFT.

Other investors: Consensys (parent company of MetaMask), Ethereal Ventures, Delphi Digital, Game7 DAO, Mirana Ventures, Monoceros Ventures.

HyperPlay is a Web3 game store (similar to Web3 version of Steam), established by MetaMask and Game7 DAO in November 2022. Its purpose is to aggregate Web3 games together, allowing players to install games directly through HyperPlay and connect their crypto wallets with just one click, bringing their tokens, NFTs, and achievements into the game.

Currently, there are over 40 blockchain games available on the HyperPlay platform, including popular titles such as "Thetan Arena", "The Sandbox", "Phantom Galaxies", "Bushi", and "My Crypto Heroes".

18、Collectibles.com

June 13, 2023

Seed round: $5 million.

Lead investor: Blockchange Ventures

Other investors: GFR Fund, Blockwall Capital, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom, Braintrust CEO Adam Jackson, etc.

Collectibles.com is a blockchain-based collectibles trading marketplace where NFTs, comics, stamps, and memorabilia can be listed for trading. The DApp is not yet live.

Highlights:

• There is a social system.

• User loyalty-based airdrop rewards.

19、BoomFi

20、Poko

Poko is a cryptocurrency payment platform that focuses on three products: virtual debit cards (create virtual debit cards on the platform and use them to make purchases or store stablecoins to earn interest), gateway aggregator (choose a provider from a variety of fiat <-> cryptocurrency providers for conversion), and direct checkout (purchase FT/NFT directly with fiat currency).

According to the company, there are over 11 million active wallets using its payment channels in Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia markets.

21、dappOS

Before the seed: undisclosed.

dappOS is an innovative DApp operating platform aimed at reducing barriers for users when interacting with encryption protocols, providing users and applications with a more user-friendly operating system.

In order to attract the next wave of one billion new users to adopt Web3, user experience is crucial. Currently, DApps are still difficult for new users to use, mainly due to two issues: the creation of on-chain wallets (private keys are easily lost) and complex interaction processes (approving various contracts). This is also what the popular account abstraction concept (ERC-4337) aims to solve by early 2023.

dappOS acts as an intermediary layer between users and DApps, abstracting existing public chain concepts and effectively solving these two problems. In the upcoming V2 version of dappOS, new features such as unified accounts, task-related order execution, and a brand new bidding system will be included.

Here we will focus on interpreting the unified account. The unified account allows users to only focus on the total assets and achieve universal use of assets in any dApp on any chain, just like in a centralized exchange, where once funds are deposited, there is no need to distinguish which chain the funds are deposited on, and the balance is universal in the spot and wealth management sections. For example, user A has a wallet balance of 100 USDC in dappOS, with 50 USDC on Ethereum and 50 USDC on BNB Chain. User A only needs to sign once to confirm the transaction and can use the total balance of 100 USDC on GMX in Arbitrum or Benqi in Avalanche, without worrying about the distribution of USDC or considering gas payment issues.

Therefore, users only need to interact on the dappOS platform to achieve the simultaneous use of different DApps across different chains, and also enjoy the Web3 interaction process with a smooth Web2 experience. dappOS, which takes "user experience" as its responsibility, deserves long-term attention.

22、Kaito AI

June 22, 2023

A Round: $5.5 million USD

Investors: Superscrypt, SPARTAN.

Kaito is a cryptocurrency search engine with built-in ChatGPT, aimed at revolutionizing cryptocurrency research. Kaito integrates TBs of unstructured information using AI technology and cryptography, making it easy for investors, researchers, developers, and the public to access this information through AI. It is worth mentioning that Kaito's latest round of financing has attracted well-known investors, including Redshirt Capital and Dragonfly Capital.

Five, L1/L2/Infrastructure

23、Leo Wallet

June 2, 2023

Seed round: $4.5 million USD.

Lead investor: HackVC.

Other investors: Data Collective, Coinbase Ventures, Amplify, Opensea, Santiago Santos.

The celebrity privacy public chain Aleo is currently in the testnet phase.

Leo Wallet is a privacy-focused wallet designed specifically for the Aleo network. It provides users with comprehensive solutions for managing their Aleo assets and transaction activities, as well as offering features such as token trading, staking, gaming, and more directly within the wallet. Developed by Demox Labs, Leo Wallet prioritizes privacy for its users.

Highlights:

• The number of users has exceeded 15,000.

• The first Aleo network dedicated wallet

24、Kakarot

Before the seed: undisclosed.

Investors: StarkWare, Lambda Class, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Ledger co-founder Nicolas Bacca, Zama co-founder Rand Hindi.

Starknet is an Ethereum zk Rollup L2 solution. Due to its use of Cairo as a programming language, it is incompatible with EVM, resulting in a "barrier to entry for Ethereum developers".

Kakarot is a zkEVM launched by Starknet, which supports developers to build and deploy Ethereum smart contracts while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem and interoperating with Starknet. It is expected to launch a testnet in August.

25、Argus

June 7th, 2023

Seed round: $10 million.

Lead investor: HAUN

Other investors: Alchemy, Robot Ventures, ANAGRAM, Dispersion Capital, EG, entrepreneur Balaji.

26、Taiko

June 8th, 2023

Lead investor: Generative Ventures.

27、Gensyn

June 12, 2023

投资方：Polychain、Paradigm、Coinbase Ventures、1confirmation、Dragonfly Capital、Electric Capital、Framework Ventures、Hashkey Capital、Huobi Ventures、MetaCartel Ventures、Multicoin Capital、Scalar Capital、Semantic Ventures、Signum Capital、SV Angel、Variant Fund、Wing VC

The lead investor is a16z crypto. The investors include Polychain, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, 1confirmation, Dragonfly Capital, Electric Capital, Framework Ventures, Hashkey Capital, Huobi Ventures, MetaCartel Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Scalar Capital, Semantic Ventures, Signum Capital, SV Angel, Variant Fund, and Wing VC.

Other investors: CoinFund, Canonical Crypto, Protocol Labs, Eden Block, Maven 11, etc.

"Artificial intelligence training should be decentralized and permissionless" - Edward Snowden (2022)

Gensyn is a decentralized AI computing network that uses blockchain and cryptography technology to verify whether deep learning tasks have been completed correctly, and is paid on demand through tokens. Gensyn aims to provide more efficient, secure, and reliable computing resources for the training of AI models.