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Financing highlights | Spartan led the investment in gaming company L3E7; Galaxy Ventures led the investment in wallet infrastructure company Turnkey
Summarized by AI
According to BlockBeats statistics, the total number of financings last week was 20, which is less than before, with a total amount of about US$191 million and an average financing amount of US$9.55 million. Among them, the infrastructure field occupies the majority, the digital asset management/payment field is relatively large, the Metaverse/GameFi field has increased, the Web3.0+AI field and the social/creator economy field are relatively small, and the NFT/digital fashion field and DeFi field have no financing. The following figure shows the proportion of financing in each sector last week:
Metaverse/GameFi
A total of 6 financings were raised in the Metaverse/GameFi field, with a total amount of US$29.5 million, accounting for 15.45% of the total financing last week.
L3E7
On April 26, according to official news, Web3 3D LBS game L3E7 (Lagrange3: Earth's 7WIN) announced the completion of a total of US$10 million in angel and A rounds of financing. The angel round of financing was led by LongLing Capital, and the A round of financing was jointly led by Spartan Group and SevenX Ventures. Kekecely, Foresight Ventures, OKX Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Vertex Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Meta Labs, Marvellous Creature, Giantwood, Mantle EcoFund, BitValue, Hailstone Labs, LiquidX, Buzzone and others participated in the investment.
L3E7 is a gaming platform that introduces an immersive earth-like experience. The team's rendering engine breathes life into the "parallel world" while meeting the needs of both traditional web2 and emerging web3 gamers. Here, players can embark on adventures, participate in battles, and interact freely in real-world stores to earn rewards, including in-game tokens and governance tokens. L3E7 has a wide lineup of more than 50 characters and the opportunity to explore more than 10,000 virtual cities.
It is reported that L3E7 has the industry's top game vision and supports casting exclusive character NFTs. The main members of the team have more than 20 years of 3A game development experience and have the technical strength to process real-world map data and convert it into game 3D models. They are committed to creating the world's first PvEvP (Player vs Environment vs Player) game that restores global cities and streets with full 3D modeling.
InfiniGods
On April 25, according to the official announcement, the blockchain game studio InfiniGods completed an $8 million Series A financing, which was exclusively invested by Pantera Capital. The financing will be used to develop its mobile game King Of Destiny. In May 2022, InfiniGods completed a $9 million seed round of financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Framework Ventures, Jefferson Capital, Animoca Brands and Double Peak. The financing is used to release three games in 2022, including an NFT with in-game utility.
InfiniGods is a game studio dedicated to developing fun, free, Web3-based games centered on ancient mythology. The studio's games are primarily mobile games, and feature cross-game game assets, items, power-ups, and currencies.
Founded in 2021, InfiniGods has raised a total of $17 million in funding. The team has worked at major game companies such as Facebook (Meta), EA, Machine Zone, LucasArts, Scopely, Zynga, Microsoft, SciPlay, DGN Games, and Wolf Game, and core members have decades of experience in social and mobile gaming.
Puffverse
On April 24, blockchain gaming platform Puffverse completed a $3 million financing round led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Arcane Group, Spartan Group, Foresight Ventures, HashKey Capital, Sky Mavis, and Xu Family Office.
Puffverse is a Disney-style 3D virtual world, powered by ecosystem partners, Web 3.0 software and underlying hardware infrastructure, aiming to create a world that connects Web 3 and reality. Users can use their characters as NFT assets to experience different content in different scenarios. Users can collect multiple characters with unique and diverse skins, various features, skills, rewards, and more.
The platform plans to issue tokens this year, which can be used in multiple games of Puffverse in the future. It will realize the cloudization of games and upgrade to a cloud gaming platform next year. At the same time, it will invite other NFT project parties to join through cloud rendering technology to convert 2D NFT into 3D NFT. Users will be able to operate NFT characters to socialize and compete in the cloud Metaverse scene or game scene built by the project party.
Other financing in the Metaverse/GameFi field includes:
On April 23, the cryptocurrency game layer Uncharted announced that it had completed a $1.7 million seed round of financing, led by Shima Capital, and participated by The Spartan Group, Double Peak Group, Devmons, 32-Bit Ventures, LiquidX, etc. It is reported that Uncharted currently mainly provides a platform for game creators and studios, and owns a game studio and a product center to support game creators.
On April 24, Tevaera, a blockchain gaming ecosystem based on ZK Stack, completed a $5 million financing round, led by Laser Digital, a digital asset subsidiary of Nomura Securities, and participated by Hashkey Capital, Crypto.com Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Selini Capital, DWF Labs, etc. Tevaera plans to launch two new games and the first decentralized L3 game chain on zkSync. Tevaera attracted more than 850,000 "soul-bound" players last year through its first multiplayer game Teva Run, Guardian NFT, and comprehensive market Teva Market.
On April 25, Animoca Brands-backed chess strategy game Anichess completed a $1.8 million financing, led by Sfermion and Amber Group, with participation from Fenbushi Capital, Aspen Digital, SNZ Capital, etc. The new funds will be used to fund game development, marketing activities and team expansion. It is reported that the game was developed by Animoca in cooperation with Chess.com and five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, using PvE gameplay, and is expected to launch the second phase and introduce PvP gameplay later in the first quarter of 2024.
Social/Creator Economy
A total of 3 financings in the social/creator economy field, with a total amount of US$3.5 million, accounting for 1.83% of the total financing last week.
PairedWorld
On April 22, according to the official announcement, Web3 social protocol PairedWorld announced the completion of US$1.5 million in financing, and the details of the financing have not been disclosed. In addition, BlackRock Venture Partner Paul Taylor also joined its advisory board. PairedWorld aims to enhance real-world social interactions through blockchain technology while providing consumer brands with new data pathways through Real World Interactions (RWI).
PairedWorld is a protocol specifically designed to verify and reward real-world human interactions, powered by the token PAIRED and a custom Zk-Proof Validium. PairedWorld introduces breakthrough incentives for real-life interactions by transforming real-world engagement into a gamified and rewarding experience.
The first application of the PairedWorld protocol is "w3meet", a mobile dApp for real-world SocialFi/DeSoc that powers a Meet-to-earn ecosystem based on rewards and reputation. w3meet aims to prove that the true power of Web3 lies in its ability to enable communities and individuals to operate in a manner similar to biological ecosystems, cultivating a sense of mutual connection and common growth through real-life interactions.
Creator.bid
On April 26, Creator.bid, a blockchain- and AI-driven digital content monetization and ownership platform, announced the completion of a new round of financing. Mechanism Capital, Zee Prime Capital, Moonrock Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Momentum 6, ID Theory, NxGen.lens, HV Capital, MH Ventures, SkyVision Capital, MQdao, AlfaDAO, Tempo, and Silvermine Capital participated in the investment. The specific amount has not been disclosed.
Creator.bid is a blockchain and AI-driven digital content monetization and ownership platform. Creator.bid supports content creators in building AI-driven digital assets to monetize content and manage writing, while also providing tools to enhance creators’ autonomy over their work and income.
The rest of the social/creator economy financing includes:
On April 26, the on-chain cultural and creative platform Spotlight announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Folius Ventures. It is reported that Spotlight solves the problem of on-chain and off-chain asset liquidity guidance through gamification to promote the development of emerging culture, especially Eastern culture.
Infrastructure
A total of 8 financings in the infrastructure field, with a total amount of over 100 million US dollars, accounting for 53.87% of the total financing last week.
Turnkey
On April 23, wallet infrastructure company Turnkey announced the completion of a $15 million Series A financing round, led by Lightspeed Faction and Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Sequoia, Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Figment Capital and Mirana Ventures. The round was completed in October last year.
Turnkey was co-founded by Jack Kearney and Bryce Ferguson, who were involved in building Coinbase's custody service. Turnkey provides a secure, flexible and scalable wallet infrastructure that developers can use to develop wallets or crypto transactions. Turnkey's main customers include blockchain development platform Alchemy and Mural wallet for enterprise services. Individual users can also use Turnkey to sign transactions.
Turnkey eliminates the complexity of private key management and allows users to scale their products in minutes. Turnkey's simple API allows users to dynamically generate thousands of wallets and sign tens of thousands of transactions on any chain, with flexible programmable permissions to ensure that users only sign what they want. And Turnkey is built on a minimal, immutable, deterministic operating system.
Movement Labs
On April 25, San Francisco-based blockchain development team Movement Labs received $38 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital. The funds will support the introduction of Facebook's Move virtual machine into Ethereum, solve smart contract vulnerabilities and increase transaction throughput. The round attracted participation from notable venture capital firms including Hack VC, Placeholder, Archetype, Maven 11, Robot Ventures, Figment Capital, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, OKX Ventures, dao5, and Aptos Labs.
Movement Labs was founded in 2022 to address widespread smart contract vulnerabilities in the Ethereum ecosystem while introducing a novel execution environment designed for over 30,000 transactions per second (TPS). By leveraging a fully EVM-compatible bytecode interpreter and Ethereum for settlement, its Move Zk Layer 2 blockchain (Movement zero-knowledge Layer 2) brings parallelization and smart contract security to users who want to stay in the Ethereum ecosystem.
In addition to its flagship product, Movement L2, Movement Labs will also launch Move Stack, an execution layer framework compatible with many Rollup frameworks from companies such as Optimism, Polygon, and Arbitrum. The team's vision is to collaborate with other Ethereum participants to scale the execution of smart contracts for users on all networks and unify them with a shared sorter.
Aligned Layer
On April 25, according to official news, Aligned Layer, a decentralized zero-knowledge proof verification layer for Ethereum developed based on EigenLayer, announced the completion of a $20 million Series A financing round, led by Hack VC, with participation from dao5, L2IV, Nomad Capital, etc.
The Aligned Layer mainnet is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2024. Aligned Layer is a proof verification layer developed on top of EigenLayer using re-mortgage and proof aggregation. This will make the verification of any SNARK proof cost-effective, leveraging the security of Ethereum validators without being limited by Ethereum. It provides Ethereum with a new infrastructure to obtain affordable zero-knowledge proof verification for all proof systems.
The rest of the infrastructure financing includes:
On April 22, the Shiba Inu (SHIB) team completed a $12 million financing by selling its unissued token TREAT to non-US venture capital investors. This round of financing was participated by Polygon Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Woodstock Fund, DWF Ventures, Stake Capital and Comma 3 Ventures.
According to Shiba Inu, the TREAT token is the "utility and governance token" of its new privacy-focused Layer 3 blockchain, which is built on the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Shibarium. Kusama said that TREAT will be the last non-stable token in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, and the ecosystem will launch a new token called Shi later this year.
On April 22, Othentic, a project focusing on shared security of distributed systems, announced the completion of a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Finality Capital Partners and Breyer Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, HashKey Capital, Collider Ventures, BanklessVC, Robot Ventures, Everstake, PUNK DAO, etc.
It is reported that Othentic is committed to creating novel distributed computing services by providing self-deployed infrastructure to launch systems with underlying shared security, including promoting innovative work on EigenLayer and Babylon. Its Othentic Stack allows AVS developers to self-deploy operator networks that customize computing services and run arbitrary computing tasks in a trustless execution environment.
On April 25, the game and AI modular data layer CARV announced the completion of a $10 million Series A financing round, led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures, with participation from Consensys, OKX Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, No Limit Holdings, Draper Dragon, Arweave, LiquidX and others. It is reported that CARV aims to build a modular data layer for games and artificial intelligence.
On April 26, the Bitcoin-based stablecoin company OpenDelta completed a $2.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by 6th Man Ventures. It is reported that OpenDelta's flagship token USDO will maintain its dollar value by hedging the Bitcoin (BTC) deposited by users. The token will not be launched until May and will only be open to users on the closed test list. But the company behind it plans to introduce runes to other Bitcoin layers.
On April 27, ZK Protocol Hinkal completed a $1.4 million strategic round of financing, led by SALT Fund, with participation from Draper Associates, SNZ Capital and Peer VC. Nika Koreli, co-founder and CTO of Hinkal, said the structure of the round was a simple future equity (SAFE) and token warrant agreement, which valued Hinkal at $70 million.
Digital Asset Management/Payment
A total of 1 financing was raised in the field of digital asset management/payment, with a total amount of over US$45 million, accounting for 23.56% of the total financing last week.
Midas
On April 22, according to official news, Turkish crypto trading platform Midas completed a $45 million Series A financing round, led by Portage Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital, Earlybird Digital East Fund and Revo Capital. It is reported that the new funds will be used to launch cryptocurrency trading and savings account products.
Web3+AI
There was a total of 1 financing in the Web3+AI field, with a total amount of over 5 million US dollars, accounting for 2.88% of the total financing last week. Including:
On April 23, the decentralized AI platform and protocol Prime Intellect announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed round of financing, led by Distributed Global and CoinFund, and participated by well-known institutions and angel investors such as Juan Benet, the founder of Compound, Collab+Currency and Filecoin.
Prime Intellect aims to build a decentralized AI ecosystem where participants can jointly own AI models by contributing computing power, code, data, capital or expertise. The platform will aggregate global computing power to provide instant, economical and scalable on-demand computing power, and anyone can use the Prime Intellect platform to participate in training powerful AI models and share ownership.
This round of financing will be used to build the Prime Intellect protocol, including the construction of a massively scalable distributed computing power market, the realization of collective ownership of AI models and computing power through the PI protocol, the development of on-chain AI protocol primitives, and decentralized governance frameworks and other key infrastructure to promote the development of decentralized AI. Currently, the computing power market of the platform has been launched in beta, bringing together the supply of more than 10 centralized and decentralized GPU cloud providers.
Other Financing
There was a total of 1 other financing, with a total amount of US$4.6 million, accounting for 2.41% of the total financing last week. Including:
On April 26, the decentralized map network Natix Network completed a strategic financing of US$4.6 million, led by Borderless Capital and co-led by Tioga Capital. Nomura's Laser Digital, Big Brain Holdings and Moonrock Capital, as well as Figment Capital Managing Partner James Parillo, Bitget Managing Director Gracy Chen and Paul Taylor and other angel investors participated in the investment. This round of financing will be used to recruit engineering and business development personnel to expand the team. Natix will launch the eponymous token NATIX on Solana in the second quarter of this year. The total supply of NATIX is 100 billion, and it is expected to airdrop 1 billion NATIX (accounting for 1%) to users in batches.
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