Financing Weekly | 13 public financing events, decentralized AI infrastructure developer Gaia Labs completed $20 million in financing, led by ByteTrade and others.

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 13 investment and financing events in the global blockchain from July 21 to July 27; the total amount of funds exceeded 143 million USD; in addition, the total financing amount for publicly listed companies' crypto asset reserves exceeded 887 million USD, as summarized below:

• DeFi sector announced 1 fundraising event, with the DEX and tokenization platform Syntetika completing a $2.5 million seed round financing;
• Web3 Games track announced 1 financing event, in which the Web3 fantasy football game Football.Fun completed a $2 million funding.
• Web3+AI track announced 4 financing events, among which a16z led a $15 million seed round investment in the AI decentralized data layer project Poseidon;
• Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 4 financing events, among which South Korean blockchain infrastructure provider DSRV completed approximately $11.6 million in Series B funding.
• Other applications reported 2 financing events, including the cryptocurrency mining company Bitzero receiving $25 million in funding;
• Decentralized Finance sector announced 1 investment and financing event, the European investment application Lightyear completed a $23 million financing, planning to launch its own cryptocurrency products.

DeFi

DEX and tokenization platform Syntetika completes $2.5 million seed round financing

Digital asset investment company Hilbert Group AB( Nasdaq: HILB B) announced that its tokenization platform and decentralized exchange Syntetika has completed a $2.5 million seed round financing. This round of financing attracted participation from over 35 angel investors and venture capital firms, including Hilbert Group's Chief Investment Officer Russell Thompson and former Aave and Allez Labs co-founder and venture capitalist Alex Berto.

Syntetika aims to simplify the issuance, trading, and management processes of various on-chain assets for individuals and institutions. The platform's first product will launch a tokenized version of the Hilbert Group's Bitcoin yield strategy, enabling investors to earn additional income from their Bitcoin holdings.

Web3 games

Web3 game studio Delabs Games completes $5.2 million in new funding, bringing total funding to $17.2 million

Web3 game studio Delabs Games has raised a total of $17.2 million to date, including a recent round of $5.2 million. This round of financing combines Series A funding led by Hashed, TON Ventures, and Kilo Fund with additional support from strategic investors. The new funding will drive the continued development of AI-powered Web3 games through the AI game creation platform Verse8 and support the upcoming launch of Delabs Games' new titles. Delabs' latest released game "Boxing Star X" has nearly 2 million global users and recently climbed to 7th place in the DappRadar game rankings, surpassing games like "Axie Infinity." The next flagship game, "Ragnarok Libre," has already surpassed 100,000 pre-registrations before its release.

AI

Gaia Labs completes $20 million financing and will launch the first AI-native smartphone

Decentralized AI infrastructure developer Gaia Labs has announced the completion of a total of $20 million in seed and Series A financing. This round of financing was led by ByteTrade/SIG Capital (Susquehanna) and Mirana/Mantle Eco Fund, with participation from several institutions including EVM Capital, Taisu Ventures, and NGC Ventures. Gaia Labs currently supports over 700,000 active nodes, with a cumulative inference count exceeding 17 trillion times, covering thousands of App-Chain domains and blockchain ecosystems. The new round of funding will be used to launch a decentralized AI smartphone, expand node capacity, improve the development toolkit, and promote Web3 integration. Gaia Labs plans to release a limited edition smartphone featuring local AI inference capabilities within the year, the Gaia AI Phone, which is based on Galaxy S25 Edge hardware, capable of running decentralized AI inference locally without relying on the cloud or data extraction, allowing users complete control over their agents.

a16z leads a $15 million seed round for Poseidon, promoting the development of a decentralized data layer for AI

The well-known venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led a $15 million seed round financing for the AI decentralized data layer project Poseidon. Poseidon is built on the Story Protocol and aims to unlock high-quality training data for the "next generation of entity AI." It is reported that Poseidon is incubated by the Story team, dedicated to solving the problem of acquiring high-quality, usable, and legally authorized training data in the AI field. Chris Dixon, founder of a16z Crypto, stated that Poseidon's decentralized data layer will establish a new economic foundation for the internet, incentivizing creators and suppliers to provide diverse data inputs for next-generation intelligent systems. The project will offer AI developers access to IP-secured, legally compliant training data through the programmable intellectual property layer and immutable registry of the Story protocol.

On-chain AI agent orchestration layer Questflow completes $6.5 million seed round funding, led by CyberFund

The orchestration layer of the on-chain AI multi-agent economy, Questflow, announced the completion of a $6.5 million seed round of financing, led by CyberFund, with other participants in this round of financing including Web3.com Ventures, Delphi Labs, Systemic Ventures, Eden Block, White Star Capital, Animoca Brands, HashKey Capital, Wagmi Ventures, ElizaOS, the Tezos Foundation, and CatcherVC, as well as funding from Aptos, the Coinbase developer platform, and Virtuals Protocol.

Questflow is the orchestration layer of the multi-agent economy. It can orchestrate multiple AI agents to act autonomously and earn rewards on-chain. The multi-agent orchestration protocol developed by the company (MAOP) supports automated task execution across Web2 and Web3 applications and provides on-chain payment capabilities for AI agents. Currently, the protocol has partnered with companies such as Google and Coinbase, and was previously selected for the Google for Startups program.

Data Guardians Network completes $5 million Pre-Seed funding

The decentralized dataset platform Data Guardians Network (D-GN) recently completed a $5 million Pre-Seed funding round. This round was led by droppGroup, Saudi businessman Hamoud Al-Rumayyan, and Hub Culture. The company plans to use this funding to expand contributor operations in the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, to develop multimodal cutting-edge datasets (including voice, lip sync, and human emotion mapping), and to deepen integration with open-source and enterprise-level AI frameworks. D-GN provides compliant, traceable, and human-centered AI training data for businesses and model developers through stablecoin rewards, blockchain transparency, and decentralized governance.

Infrastructure & Tools

South Korean blockchain infrastructure provider DSRV completes approximately $11.6 million Series B funding

According to Edaily, South Korean blockchain infrastructure provider DSRV has completed a Series B funding round of approximately 16 billion KRW (about 11.6 million USD). This round of investment was participated in by major South Korean investment institutions including Intervest and NH-SK Securities, and a second round of financing involving multiple financial institutions is expected to take place at the end of next month.

According to reports, DSRV provides infrastructure for over 70 blockchain networks worldwide, managing more than 40 trillion won in digital assets. Last year, DSRV's annual sales amounted to approximately 10.7 billion won, with a net profit of 3 billion won during the same period. The company plans to increase sales in new business areas such as stablecoins and custody, and is officially advancing its global market expansion in regions including the United States, Japan, and Africa.

Web3 domain registrar Freename completes $6.5 million Series A funding

Swiss Web3 domain registrar Freename has completed a $6.5 million Series A funding round, led by Entrée Capital, with participation from Polymorphic Capital. Seed round investors Sparkle Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund, and Golden Record Ventures also participated, along with new angel investors including Mike Lobanov, co-founder of Target Global, the Rashwan family office, and former Coinbase Custody CEO Aaron Schnarch.

The company focuses on bridging traditional DNS with blockchain domain systems. Freename's core technology includes a cross-chain domain conflict management system, supporting multi-chain domain resolution on networks such as Polygon and Solana, while maintaining compatibility with traditional browsers. Its innovative solutions allow users to create custom top-level domains and profit from the sale of second-level domains. Funds will be used for product development and global market expansion.

AI-driven governance protocol Quack AI completes $3.6 million funding, with participation from Animoca Brands and others

AI-driven governance protocol Quack AI has announced the completion of a $3.6 million financing round, with supporters including Animoca Brands, 071labs, Skyland Ventures, Kenetic, Scaling Labs, Carv, and Merlin Chain, as well as other strategic investors. Quack AI is a decentralized governance protocol that utilizes autonomous AI agents to read, analyze, and execute DAO proposals across multiple blockchains. Quack AI was initially built on DuckChain and now supports governance for ecosystems including BNB Chain, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

071labs makes a strategic investment in the Bitcoin scalability project Nubit

071labs announced a strategic investment in Nubit, a core infrastructure project for Bitcoin scaling. Nubit is dedicated to enhancing the scalability, usability, and openness of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and has developed Thunderbolt, Bitcoin's native soft fork, as a core contributor. Thunderbolt significantly increases Bitcoin's transaction throughput through key technologies such as UTXO bundling and OP_CAT, achieving native support for on-chain applications like smart contracts, asset issuance, and DeFi. As of July 2025, the Thunderbolt mainnet has surpassed 4 million transactions, with over 5,000 daily active users.

Others

Crypto Mining:

Cryptocurrency mining company Bitzero raises $25 million in funding, with the initial funds to be used for the purchase of 2,900 Bitmain S21 Pro mining machines

Bitzero, a crypto mining company supported by Kevin O’Leary, recently secured $25 million in financing to expand its mining operations. The company stated that the initial funds will be used to procure 2,900 Bitmain S21 Pro mining machines, which are expected to be deployed within four to six months and generate approximately $10 million in additional annual revenue for the company. At the same time, Bitzero is committed to utilizing hydropower and low-carbon energy to promote the sustainable development of its data centers in North America and Europe. Mohammed Bakhashwain, the company's president and CEO, stated that this financing will accelerate the deployment of leading mining technologies and further solidify Bitzero's position as a leader in sustainable and profitable data centers.

Soluna Holdings completes $20 million financing to advance the Kati green data center project in Texas

Soluna Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed company developing green data centers for Bitcoin mining and intensive computing applications such as artificial intelligence, has announced the completion of a new $20 million funding round, with participation from Spring Lane Capital. The new funds will be used to expand the Kati green data center project in Texas, further increasing its Bitcoin hosting business. The project is scheduled to begin construction in the third quarter of 2025, with initial power-on and business launch expected in the first quarter of 2026.

Crypto Asset Reserves: (Not included in the current financing weekly report statistics)

Public company Windtree announces it has secured $520 million in new funding to expand its BNB capital strategy

Biotechnology company Windtree Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: WINT) announced that it has signed a common stock purchase agreement worth up to $500 million to establish an equity line of credit ("ELOC") and strengthen its BNB cryptocurrency funding strategy. The company also signed an additional stock purchase agreement worth $20 million with Build and Build Corp. 99% of the funds raised from ELOC and Build and Build Corp will be used to acquire BNB cryptocurrency.

UK AI company Satsuma Technology raises $135 million to establish a Bitcoin vault

UK-based artificial intelligence company Satsuma Technology has announced the successful raising of $135 million to establish one of the largest Bitcoin vaults in the UK. The company stated that all committed funds are expected to arrive within the next two weeks. This financing is expected to make Satsuma the second-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the UK, second only to The Smarter Web Company. At the same time, this could also become the largest single Bitcoin purchase record by a UK company. Satsuma completed this financing through convertible bonds, aiming to accelerate business growth and promote the deep integration of Bitcoin and artificial intelligence.

Canadian public company Matador secures $100 million in financing to accelerate Bitcoin reserves

Canadian listed company Matador Technologies Inc. (Toronto Stock Exchange code: MATA) announced that it has secured $100 million in financing to accelerate its Bitcoin reserve build-up. The first tranche of $10.5 million has been delivered, and all funds will be allocated for the purchase of Bitcoin. The company plans to hold 1,000 Bitcoins by 2026 and reach 6,000 by 2027, with the goal of holding 1% of the global Bitcoin supply in the long term.

Satsuma (formerly Tao Alpha) raises over £100 million to drive AI and Bitcoin initiatives

The listed company Satsuma (formerly Tao Alpha) announced the completion of over £100 million in convertible bond fundraising and has launched a third round of financing, with the minimum subscription threshold reduced to $100,000, expected to end on July 28. The funds will be used to expand the business and promote the construction of Bitcoin and decentralized AI infrastructure. CEO Henry Elder has officially joined the board as an executive director.

Public company Mega Matrix completes $16 million private placement financing and officially enters the stablecoin sector

Mega Matrix Inc. (NYSE American: MPU) announced that it has completed a $16 million private placement, providing a solid capital foundation for its strategic entry into the stablecoin space. The investors in this private placement are mainly crypto funds and industry professionals, reflecting the market's strong recognition and confidence in the company's expansion strategy. The company plans to primarily use the funds from the financing to build a stablecoin asset allocation system and an on-chain yield mechanism, focusing on developing corporate financial strategies based on stablecoins and governance tokens. Currently, Mega Matrix is in talks with several leading global stablecoin issuers and will initiate the allocation of mainstream stablecoins and governance tokens.

Hilbert Group has reached a financing agreement of 150 million Swedish Krona with LDA Capital to support Bitcoin funding strategies

Sweden's Hilbert Group has signed a structural financing agreement worth 150 million Swedish Krona (approximately 15.8 million USD) with LDA Capital to support its Bitcoin funding strategy. This ATM-style financing tool allows Hilbert Group to flexibly withdraw funds over the next 36 months to purchase more Bitcoin.

centralized finance

European investment app Lightyear completes $23 million funding, plans to launch its own crypto products

The European investment app Lightyear has announced the completion of a new funding round of $23 million, led by NordicNinja, with co-investment from Markus Villig, co-founder of the ride-hailing giant Bolt. Other participants include Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise, and Ott Kaukver, former CTO of Checkout.com, among other figures from the Estonian tech scene. According to insiders, Lightyear's valuation after this funding round is between $200 million and $300 million, significantly increasing compared to its valuation during the funding in 2022.

Lightyear was founded in 2021 by former Wise employees Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer. Its application offers commission-free trading services for over 5,000 stocks, ETFs, and money market funds globally, currently covering 25 countries. The company aims to create a "European version of Robinhood" and plans to launch its own cryptocurrency products within two months.

Archax Acquires German Digital Asset Company DDA to Expand European Crypto ETP Presence

The UK digital asset exchange Archax will acquire the German regulated crypto asset management company Deutsche Digital Assets (DDA) to strengthen its business layout in major European financial markets such as the UK, Germany, and France. DDA currently manages approximately $70 million in assets and focuses on distributing exchange-traded products (ETPs) through European banks and asset management institutions. This acquisition will bring Archax new licenses under the German BaFin for portfolio management and investment consulting, enabling it to better serve EU institutional clients.

(Not included in this financing weekly report statistics)