Overview of Blockchain Investment and Financing This Week

According to statistics, last week (4.7-4.13), there were a total of 17 investment and financing events in the global Blockchain field, with a total scale exceeding 150 million USD, showing a significant increase compared to the previous two weeks. The details are as follows:

• There were 3 financing events in the DeFi sector, among which the yield-generating stablecoin protocol Cap raised $11 million.

• There were 2 financing events in the Web3 gaming sector, including DashFun completing a new round of financing.

• There have been 3 financing events in the Web3+AI field, among which AI cybersecurity company Octane completed a $6.75 million seed round.

• There are 2 financing events in the infrastructure and tools sector, including the L2 project OpenZK Network completing $6 million in early financing.

• There are 4 financing events in other categories, among which the crypto dining application Blackbird Labs completed a $50 million Series B financing.

• There are 3 financing events in the centralized finance sector, including the completion of a $40 million Series A funding by cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile.

DeFi

The yield-generating stablecoin protocol Cap has completed $11 million in financing.

The yield-generating stablecoin protocol Cap has announced the raising of $11 million in funding. This funding was obtained in a recent $8 million seed round and will be used to develop Cap's stablecoin engine, which is planned to launch later this year. Previously, Cap had already raised $3 million in the last funding round. Cap will provide users with a way to earn additional yields through a re-staking protocol. Cap's system is designed to allow users to earn passive interest or yields based on these tokens.

Firefish, the open market for Bitcoin collateral loans, has completed a $1.8 million seed round financing.

The Bitcoin collateral loan marketplace Firefish has completed a $1.8 million seed funding round. The funds will be used to further expand Firefish's institutional loan program to cover more investors and high-net-worth individuals seeking to make traditional investments in the Bitcoin space. Firefish was launched in 2022, using multi-signature escrow contracts, price and payment oracles, and pre-signed recovery transactions, natively built on Bitcoin, with the vision of creating a trust-minimized open lending market.

The Bitcoin DeFi aggregation protocol Sats Terminal has completed a $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing.

The Bitcoin DeFi aggregation protocol Sats Terminal has completed a $1.7 million Pre-Seed funding round. The new funds will be used to expand its platform. By providing decentralized exchanges (DEX), cross-chain bridges, and yield aggregation within the Bitcoin ecosystem, Sats Terminal will leverage this funding to further develop its infrastructure. At the core of Sats Terminal is the aggregation of major Bitcoin DeFi protocols, allowing users to access the best staking yields, the most competitive token exchange rates, and seamless bridging options through a single interface.

Web3 Games

DashFun completes a new round of financing to create an AI-driven Web3 gaming ecosystem.

DashFun has announced that it has completed a new round of financing. DashFun is a Web3 gaming platform based on Telegram mini programs, and it plans to expand to other social platforms in the future, aiming to build a sustainable, AI-driven gaming ecosystem.

Web3 game startup Gunzilla Games receives strategic investment

Crypto venture capital announced a strategic investment in the dystopian cyberpunk shooter game "Off The Grid"'s blockchain developer Gunzilla Games. The specific amount has not been disclosed, and this investment is suspected to be a shift in their previous investment strategy.

AI

AI cybersecurity company Octane completes $6.75 million seed round financing.

AI cybersecurity startup Octane has announced the completion of a $6.75 million seed round funding. The funds will be used for product development, expanding the engineering team, and increasing Octane's influence. Octane's core proposition is to supplement passive auditing models with always-on AI defenses. Currently, Octane focuses on smart contract vulnerabilities, but the company's future goal is to detect and prevent more complex attacks.

Plastic Labs completed a $5.35 million Pre-Seed funding round and launched the AI identity platform Honcho.

Plastic Labs announced the completion of a $5.35 million Pre-Seed funding round. Meanwhile, its personalized AI identity platform "Honcho" is now open for early access. Honcho provides user identity modeling and social cognition features through a cloud API, helping developers build AI agents with personalized memory and adaptability. Plastic plans to expand Honcho from a platform to a decentralized network, allowing users to share and sovereignly own their "digital identity representation" across multiple AI applications, promoting an individual-led AI alignment paradigm.

Web3 AI project DecentralGPT has completed a $3 million angel round and Series A strategic financing.

The Web3 AI project DecentralGPT recently announced the completion of $3 million equivalent in angel round and Series A strategic financing. The project team announced plans to accelerate the development of core modules such as multimodal large model support and zero-knowledge proof privacy layers. DecentralGPT is a decentralized large language model infrastructure that achieves decentralized deployment of multiple open-source large models through a distributed AI inference network. Since its mainnet launch in June 2024, the platform has surpassed 2 million registered users, with the number of token holding addresses reaching 900,000.

Infrastructure & Tools

L2 project OpenZK Network completes $6 million in early financing.

OpenZK Network announces the completion of a $6 million early-stage financing. This round of financing will be used to support its technology development and ecosystem construction. OpenZK is a Layer 2 solution based on ZK rollup technology, which integrates native ETH staking, liquidity re-staking, and stablecoin staking into one platform.

The modular blockchain platform Plume has received strategic investment.

The first modular Blockchain platform specifically designed for real-world assets, Plume, has announced that it has secured strategic investment. This round of financing will accelerate the development of Plume's full-stack infrastructure and further solidify its leading position in the RWAfi field. Plume is constructing an EVM-compatible Blockchain environment and full-stack infrastructure, aimed at transforming traditional financial instruments, carbon credits, GPUs, collectibles, and other alternative assets into composable and interactive digital assets, while endowing them with new application value in DeFi scenarios.

Others

Consumer Applications

The cryptocurrency dining application Blackbird Labs has completed a $50 million Series B funding round.

The crypto dining application Blackbird Labs has completed a $50 million Series B financing. This financing is used for company equity and token warrants, which are allocations of yet-to-be-released cryptocurrencies. Since 2022, Blackbird Labs has raised a total of $85 million.

Blackbird is a restaurant loyalty and payment application. Each time users visit a restaurant registered on the app, they earn rewards in the internal cryptocurrency FLY. Users can use this cryptocurrency to pay for meals anywhere within the Blackbird network, which includes over 600 restaurants across multiple cities. Blackbird Labs launched its own Blockchain in February, which is built on Layer2 of a certain trading platform, called Flynet.

Web3 financial education platform BugsCoin has completed $12 million in Series A financing.

The Web3 financial education platform BugsCoin announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing. The new funds will be used for global expansion and localized education projects, upgrading its decentralized asset management protocol BugsFunded, developing AI-driven smart advisory tools, and optimizing token economics while exploring new ecosystem use cases.

The decentralized reading platform Libraro has received approximately $1.28 million in investment.

The decentralized publishing and reading platform Libraro announced that it has received additional investment, bringing the total investment amount to approximately 1.28 million USD. The Libraro platform utilizes Blockchain technology to protect authors' identities, prevent copyright infringement, and enhance the transparency of ownership and publishing rights. The platform deepens the connection between readers, authors, and publishers through a Web3 loyalty program.

Web3 Social

Social communication protocol Towns completes $10 million Series B financing.

The decentralized communication protocol Towns has announced the completion of a $10 million Series B funding round. Towns is committed to building an on-chain communication infrastructure to promote the development of Web3 social and collaboration tools. The project team stated, "The future of communication will move on-chain."

Centralized Finance

Cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile completed a $40 million Series A financing.

The cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile has completed a $40 million Series A funding round. This round of financing values Meanwhile at $190 million, nearly double the valuation from its most recent funding round in 2022. Meanwhile will use the funds raised in this round to expand globally and ensure its products meet regulatory requirements.

Meanwhile, the life insurance policy is similar to a regular life insurance policy. The policyholder is required to pay the monthly premium calculated by the actuary. However, unlike payments made from a bank account or by check, customers must pay using Bitcoin from their cryptocurrency wallet. When the policyholder passes away, their family will receive the claim amount in the form of Bitcoin.

The crypto payment center Lyzi has completed a seed round financing of approximately 1.4 million USD.

The crypto payment center Lyzi has completed approximately $1.4 million in seed round financing. Lyzi is built on the Tezos Layer1 Blockchain, allowing consumers to use cryptocurrency for daily payments in retail and e-commerce environments. Merchants receive payments in cryptocurrency and have fiat currency deposited directly into their bank accounts. Lyzi's next step is to launch on Tezos's Layer2, which is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

The tokenization platform Progmat has completed its Pre-A round of financing.

The tokenization platform Progmat completed its Pre-A round of financing earlier this week, bringing in three new investors, with the specific amount of this financing round not yet disclosed. The completion of this new round of financing has also led to the dilution of the equity of other shareholders of Progmat. Progmat is currently one of the two main licensed blockchain networks in Japan for issuing digital securities, and its platform will issue a yen stablecoin on a public blockchain.

Venture Capital Fund

A certain liquidity fund has opened applications for $250 million to support the development of medium to large-scale cryptocurrency projects.

A certain organization announced that its $250 million liquidity fund is now open for applications, aimed at providing strategic capital and ecosystem support for medium to large token projects, helping these projects achieve sustainable growth and real application implementation.

Mantra has launched a fund of approximately $108 million to support the tokenization of real-world assets and DeFi.

The Mantra Blockchain network has launched an ecosystem fund of approximately $108 million, aimed at accelerating the development of startups focused on the tokenization of real-world assets and decentralized finance. Mantra stated that it will seek investment opportunities through its partner network over the next four years, deploying funds to "high-potential blockchain projects" worldwide. The fund will implement an "open policy, welcoming projects at any stage of development globally, with a particular focus on the RWA and DeFi sectors."