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Financing highlights｜ABCDE Capital leads the investment in the perpetual contract trading platform Surf Protocol; Shima Capital leads the investment in the on-chain copyright IP platform Trips

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The total number of financings last week was 10, with a total amount of approximately US$885.2 million, and the average financing amount was US$88.52 million.

According to BlockBeats statistics, there were a total of 10 financing deals last week, which is a decrease compared to previous weeks. The total amount raised was approximately 885.2 million US dollars, with an average financing amount of 8.852 million US dollars. The majority of the financing deals were in the digital asset management/payment sector, followed by infrastructure. There was an increase in financing deals in the Web3.0+AI sector, while the DeFi sector, social/creator economy sector, and other sectors had fewer financing deals. There were no financing deals in the metaverse/GameFi and NFT/digital fashion sectors. The following chart shows the financing distribution across different sectors last week:

DeFi

There were a total of 1 financing in the DeFi field, with a total amount exceeding 3 million US dollars, accounting for 0.34% of the total financing amount last week.

Surf Protocol

On October 30th, according to Cointelegraph, Surf Protocol, a perpetual contract trading platform based on Base, completed a $3 million financing round with ABCDE Capital as the lead investor and OP Crypto and C² Ventures as co-investors. Surf Protocol aims to provide users with a variety of tradable Perp assets while maintaining low fees.

Surf Protocol is a permissionless AMM derivative trading protocol that supports the creation and trading of the widest range of cryptocurrencies. Surf is the contract version of UniSwap and has made critical innovations. To maximize LP incentives, Surf implements a B2B2C trading protocol for LP mechanisms. 80% of Surf's trading fees go to LP, 10% flow to the protocol, 5% reward the creator of each pool, and 5% reward the contributor with the highest TVL in each pool. Under this incentive system, LPs will be more active in creating trading pairs for non-blue-chip long-tail assets. Additionally, because the holder of the largest TVL can receive 5% of the entire pool's trading fees, a layer of real gameplay is formed on TVL, encouraging "big and loyal" TVL to continue to provide LP and bring better experiences and deeper liquidity to traders.

In Surf Protocol, each transaction automatically creates five different pools, each with unique fees, forming various liquidity pool structures across different assets. For traders, these pools are transparent and orders are automatically matched starting from the pool with the lowest fee, and then flowing to the next pool with a higher fee once the lowest pool is full. For LPs, choosing different pools allows them to earn higher fees and dynamically select which pool to provide liquidity to for traders. For the overall system, during more stable periods, fees may significantly decrease (as more LPs choose lower fee pools), potentially reaching the theoretically feasible minimum level.

Social/Creative Economy

There were a total of 1 funding in the social/creator economy sector, with a total amount exceeding 2.5 million US dollars, accounting for 0.28% of the total funding raised last week.

Trips

On November 2nd, Trips, a blockchain-based copyright IP platform, completed a $2.5 million pre-seed round of financing. The round was led by Shima Capital, Animal Capital, Blackwood Ventures, Serafund, and Calligraphy Digital, with participation from Blizzard and the Avalanche Ecosystem Fund.

Trips provides creators with the infrastructure they need to thrive in today's digital economy. This is the first step in a powerful vision that includes access to liquidity opportunities previously unavailable, while providing protection for creative works to prevent unauthorized derivative use and ensure that original authors receive proper compensation. Michael Finkelstein, CEO and founder of Trips, said, "Creators are unable to obtain funding to monetize their assets, grow their businesses, and achieve financial stability."

Trips provides a new way for content creators to turn their copyright into tangible financial resources. "Trips currently supports YouTube, but plans to add more platforms in the near future," said Marshall Sandman, managing partner of Animal Capital. "It's time for every creator to control their intellectual property through a transformative approach that recognizes their rights and expands their financial possibilities. TRIPS represents the key innovation needed at the intersection of technology, creativity, and finance."

Infrastructure

There were a total of 3 financing deals in the infrastructure sector, with a total amount of over 9 million US dollars, accounting for 1.02% of the total financing amount last week.

Toposware

On November 2nd, Toposware, a zero-knowledge encryption technology company, announced the completion of a $5 million strategic seed round of financing. Investors include Evolution Equity Partners, Triatomic Capital, K2 Access Fund, and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

Toposware focuses on solving challenges related to interoperability, privacy, and scalability, and is ready to bring zero-knowledge to enterprise ecosystems. Toposware's recently launched Testnet and Topos Builders program are driving the adoption and development of the next generation zero-knowledge infrastructure.

Toposware's current focus is on the Americas and Europe, with a focus on further building its engineering team to provide core zero-knowledge infrastructure and community roles for ecosystem adoption. This round of funding will further enable the company to attract leading enterprise customers by launching an enterprise early access program.

Infrastructure remaining financing includes:

On November 1st, Waterfall Network, a decentralized smart contract platform, announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-A round of financing, led by ByteTrade Lab. The company plans to use this new funding to promote the launch of its mainnet in the first quarter of 2024. The EVM-compatible decentralized smart contract network currently being built by Waterfall Network allows any device (including low-cost laptops and mobile phones) to run validator nodes, while also providing users with more access and full control over their data, promoting true on-chain decentralized governance.

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On November 1st, blockchain infrastructure and tool company Kana Labs completed a $2 million seed round of financing, with participation from NetMarble subsidiary MarbleX, Nexus One, Klaytn, and Gate.io. This round of financing will be used to enhance products such as smart wallets and Web3 middleware toolkits, as well as to expand internationally, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region, particularly South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Prior to this round of financing, Kana Labs conducted an oversubscribed pre-seed round of financing with a valuation of $21 million.

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Digital Asset Management/Payment

There were a total of 3 financing deals in the digital asset management/payment field, with a total amount exceeding 862.4 million US dollars, accounting for 97.42% of the total financing amount last week.

Northern Data

On November 2nd, according to TheMinerMag, Northern Data, a Bitcoin mining company in Germany, announced that it has signed an unsecured debt financing agreement with stablecoin issuer Tether for a total of 575 million euros (approximately 600 million US dollars). The funds raised will be used to expand its Taiga Cloud, Ardent Data Centers, and Peak Mining businesses.

According to monthly disclosed data, Northern Data has not expanded its Bitcoin mining capacity this year, resulting in its market share dropping to 0.61% in September.

WeLab

On October 30th, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, Hong Kong virtual banks and online lending platform WeLab received $260 million in asset financing from Citigroup. The sources said that Citigroup was the sole senior underwriter for the transaction, but requested anonymity because the transaction was not public. Currently, representatives from Citigroup in Hong Kong and WeLab have declined to comment. The financing was first reported in November of last year, when WeLab was estimated to be valued at around $2 billion.

It is reported that WeLab has settled in Hong Kong Cyberport and is also a founding member of the Hong Kong Web3.0 Association.

数字资产管理/支付其余融资包括：

Translation:

Digital asset management/payment and other financing including:

On October 31st, Quantum Blockchain, a mining company listed on the London Stock Exchange, completed a £2 million (approximately $2.4 million) financing through a new share placement. The new funds will be used to advance its research and development plans by increasing recruitment, acquiring new hardware, and increasing software development. It may also establish cloud service infrastructure in North America.