Financing Highlights | Binance Labs leads investment in 3A game platform SkyArk Chronicles; Pantera Capital participates in Web3 product development studio Pontem.
According to BlockBeats statistics, there were a total of 15 financing deals last week, which is an increase compared to previous weeks. The total amount raised was approximately $164.5 million, with an average financing amount of $10.97 million. The majority of the financing deals were in the social/creator economy sector, followed by infrastructure and metaverse/GameFi sectors. There was also an increase in financing deals in the DeFi and digital asset management/payment sectors, while the Web3.0+AI sector had fewer deals. There were no financing deals reported in the NFT/digital fashion sector or other sectors. The following chart shows the financing distribution across different sectors last week:
Metaverse/GameFi
In the field of Metaverse/GameFi, a total of 2 financings were completed with a total amount of 21 million US dollars, accounting for 12.77% of the total financing amount last week.
SkyArk Chronicles
On January 12th, 3A game platform SkyArk Chronicles announced on social media that it has completed a $15 million financing round, with Binance Labs leading the investment and participation from VividThree, GuildFi, Jambo, BreederDAO, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino, Tangent Ventures co-founder Wangarian, and Story Protocol CEO S.Y. Lee.
SkyArk Chronicles is a role-playing game with a series of NFT anime characters, featuring Play-to-Earn functionality. Its NFTs can also be used in multiple games within the same series, and players can use the built-in multi-chain marketplace to trade and transfer NFTs in all SkyArk series games. SkyHeroes is one of the main NFTs in SkyArk Chronicles, currently divided into five main categories. All SkyHeroes are randomly generated and have rarity based on different unique parts. It is worth noting that their eyes have diversity, each containing a passive ability that changes the game rules. Regardless of rarity, the use of each eye depends on the player's strategy. By merging two NFTs together, a character can have up to two different eyes, thus having 2 passive skills.
Its parent company SkyArk is a blockchain game studio based in Singapore, whose members are senior professionals in the gaming industry. They have worked for more than 10 years in the AAA mobile game departments of companies such as XII Braves\Garena, Gameloft, Gumi, and Moonton. The assets in the SkyArk series games will be minted as NFTs on the chain and are tradable. All resources in the game are self-drawn by their studios in Taiwan and Japan, including the theme song sung by a Japanese artist in collaboration with Sony. The wearable devices or passive attributes in the game are inspired by popular manga such as Naruto and One Piece.
ArenaX Labs
On January 9th, AI game developer ArenaX Labs announced the completion of a $6 million financing round for AI game AI Arena. The round was led by Framework Ventures, with participation from SevenX Ventures, FunPlus/Xterio, and Moore Strategic Ventures.
AI Arena is an arena where AIs battle against each other. Players will train their own AI NFT game characters and compete against other players. The battle process is similar to platform fighting games like "Super Smash Bros.", where the first player to knock their opponent off the map wins. The outcome of each battle depends on the player's skills in training, aiming to help users understand the operation and learning process of artificial intelligence. The features of AI Arena NFT game characters are divided into three categories, each character consisting of "skin", "frame", and "core".
ArenaX Labs has three Co-Founders: Brandon Da Silva, Wei Xie, and Dylan Pereira. Brandon Da Silva is the CEO. Before founding AI Arena, he worked for 5 years at OPTrust, one of Canada's largest pension funds, where he was involved in investment and management. Incorporating machine learning into investment analysis has been a major theme throughout his career. Brandon emphasizes his passion for technology in his personal profile and Github, which is indirectly confirmed by his Twitter. Wei Xie is the COO and was responsible for OPTrust's cryptocurrency/digital asset investment strategy. Dylan Pereira is the Art Director and previously worked in design at Titmouse, an independent animation production company in the United States.
Related reading: "AI Arena: NFT AI Arena led by Paradigm".
DeFi
In the DeFi field, a total of 4 financings were completed with a total amount of over 13.85 million US dollars, accounting for 8.42% of the total financing amount last week.
Altitude
On January 9th, DeFi lending protocol Altitude announced the completion of a $6.1 million seed round of financing, which includes a previously completed $2.1 million pre-seed round of financing and a new round of financing of $4 million, with participation from Tioga Capital, New Form Capital, Flow Ventures, UDHC, GSR, Owl Ventures, and others. Altitude has completed on-chain testing and will soon enter the closed testing phase, available for use by whitelisted addresses. After testing, it will be fully released.
Altitude is a protocol for managing DeFi loans and collateral. When users borrow through Altitude, the protocol manages loans and collateral in real-time based on market conditions to provide the best loan rates. Altitude's approach to cross-chain bridging is unique. Unlike simply transferring stablecoin liquidity, Altitude focuses on bridging blue-chip assets. This eliminates centralization around stablecoin liquidity and makes cross-chain transfers easier. As one of the first applications on LayerZero, Altitude can solidify its position as a major bridge. It will initially support 8 chains, with fees allocated to $gALTD holders.
This protocol automatically manages collateralized debt by adjusting the LTV ratio in real-time. This method maximizes capital efficiency while maintaining a safe liquidation risk profile. If the value of the collateral increases and Altitude determines that there is excess collateral available for the loan, the protocol will allocate it to various platforms to generate income. If there is a sudden need to reclaim collateral to ensure the loan, the protocol will automatically rebalance the loan to maintain the target loan-to-value ratio. In addition, Altitude is connected to major DeFi lending protocols and yield aggregators to obtain better rates and seek returns.
Saros
On January 8th, according to official sources, Solana-based DeFi platform Saros completed a $3.75 million private funding round, with participation from industry leaders such as Solana Ventures, Hashed, Spartan, Arche Fund, GBV, Assym, IF, Genblock, K300, Cryptomind, Kyros, and Evernew.
The Saros ecosystem includes the Saros super app, Saros ID, and the Saros token ($SAROS). To achieve the vision of creating an interconnected Solana ecosystem, Saros is expanding its focus from DeFi products to consumer applications, payments, ID, and dePIN, and has launched the Saros super app and SarosID. SarosID is a privacy-protecting digital identity solution designed to enhance user trust and drive adoption of Saros services. As the gateway to the Saros ecosystem, SarosID enables seamless access and encourages interaction with the Saros super app. Users can enjoy the benefits of decentralized finance while retaining control over their personal data.
This round of funding will be used for the expansion plan of the project and the development of the Saros super app. The Saros super app is a completely non-custodial application that provides a one-stop solution for global payments, purchases, and transfers using digital assets. With its financial service suite, the Saros super app hopes to meet the diverse needs of users and provide them with a seamless and secure experience in the digital economy. The Saros super app and its user-friendly interface and innovative features will be launched in the first quarter of 2024.
DeFi Other financing includes:
On January 12th, Particle, a leveraged trading platform, announced the completion of its seed round financing. Polychain Capital led the investment, with participation from Nascent, Inflection, Neon DAO, Naveen Jain, Arthur Hayes, and DCF God. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. It is reported that Particle allows all tokens to be traded with leverage through the use of the Leverage AMM (LAMM) protocol.
On January 10th, cross-chain DeFi protocol Entangle announced the completion of a $4 million seed and private funding round, with participation from institutions such as Big Brain Holdings, Launch Code Capital, LBank Labs, Skynet EGLD Capital, and Owl Ventures. The new funds will be used to enhance its protocol technology, expand global influence, and strengthen its role in cross-chain and interoperable data progress.
Social/Creative Economy
There were a total of 1 financing in the social/creator economy sector, with a total amount exceeding 80 million US dollars, accounting for 48.63% of the total financing amount last week.
Freechat
On January 8th, according to 36Kr, the blockchain social platform "Freechat" has recently completed a financing of $80 million, with a post-investment valuation of $800 million. The investor has not been disclosed.
Freechat was founded in 2022 and completed a $2 million seed round of financing in August 2022. In early 2023, Freechat officially launched its global servers. In addition to the initial online chat and community operations modules, the platform has also launched creator plans, short video modules, and community squares. While ensuring the features of Web3, the platform provides more possibilities to create an open, free, and secure social space for users. Unlike traditional blockchains, Freechain is an application-layer public chain that includes social message relays, private networks, decentralized storage, AI computing power, order books, and more. It will be applied in e-commerce, gaming, social, credit, identity verification, storage, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other fields. Anyone can create applications similar to WeChat, Taobao, Douyin, etc. based on Freechain and achieve interconnection.
Freechat founder Jack Long revealed that in the early stages of project development, the team purchased 78 bitcoins as reserves for $16,000, spending $1.248 million. Based on the current bitcoin price of $44,000, the project's bitcoin reserves have reached $3.432 million, with a floating profit of nearly $2.2 million, laying a financial foundation for Freechat's future development in overseas markets. After this round of financing is completed, Freechat will focus on privacy and security, user data control, and further strengthen its Web3 features, creating a decentralized, open, and transparent social network platform for the global market.
Infrastructure
There were a total of 6 financing deals in the infrastructure sector, with a total amount of over 36.85 million US dollars, accounting for 22.4% of the total financing amount last week.
Bitfinity
On January 11th, according to The Block, Bitfinity, a Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on Internet Computer and compatible with EVM, completed a $7 million financing round at a valuation of $130 million. Polychain Capital, ParaFi Capital, Warburg Serres, Dokia Capital, and Draft Ventures were among the investors in this round.
Finoa
Pontem
There were a total of 1 financing in the field of digital asset management/payment, with a total amount exceeding 10 million US dollars, accounting for 6.08% of the total financing amount last week.
Argo Blockchain
Web3+AI
On January 8th, CharacterX, a decentralized AI synthetic social network, completed a $2.8 million financing round with a valuation of $30 million. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, INCE Capital, and Spark Digital Capital, with participation from CGV, ZC Capital, GRI, Fermion Capital, 84000LP, and Fan Zhang.
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