2024 Web3 Investment and Financing Annual Report: The total financing amount exceeds 10 billion US dollars, and the billion-level financing AI track alone accounts for 30%

Author:aididiaojp.eth, Foresight News

According to Foresight Wiki statistics, throughout 2024, the Wiki has included a total of 979 investments and financing transactions in the crypto industry, including 354 transactions in tools and infrastructure, 196 transactions in the DeFi field, 112 transactions in the asset management field, and 137 transactions in the chain games and NFT fields. The total amount of investment and financing disclosed is approximately US$11.583 billion. The total amount of disclosed investment and financing was the same as last year, and the number of financings in the DeFi field increased significantly compared with last year, with a year-on-year increase of 37%.

There will be a total of 17 financings worth over 100 million yuan in 2024, including 6 in the AI ​​​​track. The ten project financings worthy of attention are as follows:

• Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has raised $5 billion and is valued at $45 billion.
• Mixed reality startup Magic Leap recently received a $590 million investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Magic Leap is entering the Metaverse market.
• The "Network Nation" project Praxis announced the completion of US$525 million in financing, with participation from GEM Digital and others. Praxis bills itself as the world's first Cyber ​​Nation, an Internet-native alliance aimed at accelerating technological progress and revitalizing Western civilization. More than 14,000 Praxians live in 82 countries.
• Monad Labs completed US$225 million in financing, led by Paradigm. Monad Labs aims to introduce parallel execution and superscalar pipeline technology through its parallel EVM Layer1 project Monad to improve the performance of the Ethereum Virtual Machine and solve the low throughput problem of existing EVM-compatible blockchains.
• Bitcoin infrastructure development company Blockstream announced the completion of US$210 million in convertible note financing, led by Fulgur Ventures. Blockstream will accelerate the adoption and development of the company's Layer 2 technology, grow its mining operations and expand its Bitcoin capital reserves.
• The decentralized social protocol Farcaster completed US$150 million in financing, led by Paradigm. Farcaster will primarily focus on daily active user growth and adding developer primitives such as channels and direct messaging to the protocol.
• Crypto investment platform Public completed US$135 million in equity and debt financing, led by Accel. Public will enhance the artificial intelligence capabilities of the Public platform.
• Digital asset management company ParaFi Capital completed US$120 million in financing, with participation from Theta Capital Management and others. ParaFi Capital will acquire shares of other crypto funds that focus on specific market segments, strategies or geographies, and plans to build a portfolio investing in shares of 30 to 50 such funds over the next 3 to 5 years.
• Layer1 public chain Berachain completed US$100 million in Series B financing, led by Framework Ventures and others. Berachain says it currently has a beta version of its blockchain that has processed 100 million transactions, and the platform is designed to be compatible with applications based on the Ethereum blockchain.
• HashKey Group announced the completion of nearly US$100 million in Series A financing at a valuation of over US$1.2 billion. HashKey Group will deepen HashKey's full ecological layout in the virtual asset industry, accelerate the diversification of licensed business products in Hong Kong, and promote the group's compliance and innovative development on a global scale.

There are a total of 100 million-level financings, of which 22 have disclosed financing amounts of US$50 million and above. Among them, the ten projects worthy of attention are as follows:

• PIP Labs, a team of core contributors to the on-chain IP protocol Story, announced the completion of $80 million in Series B financing, led by a16z Crypto.
• Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon completed $70 million in financing, led by Paradigm.
• The modular blockchain Eclipse completed a $50 million Series A round of financing, led by Placeholder and Hack VC. Eclipse has launched the mainnet and has released the development network and testnet versions of its protocol. Multiple DApps have tested its infrastructure. .
• DeFi lending protocol Morpho completed a US$50 million strategic round of financing, led by Ribbit Capital.
• Cryptozoology company Zama completed a $73 million Series A round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs. Zama will continue to research and develop its FHE tools.
• Crypto market maker Flowdesk completed a $50 million Series B round of financing, with participation from Cathay Innovation, Ripple, Bpifrance, etc. This round of financing valued Flowdesk at more than $250 million. Flowdesk plans to use the funding to further expand its global presence, focusing on expansion in Singapore and the United States, as well as opening a new office in London.
• Adam D'Angelo, CEO of the online Q&A website Quora, announced the completion of US$75 million in financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The funds from this round of financing will be mainly used to accelerate the development of its AI chat platform Poe, and it is expected that most of the funds will be paid to the creators of Bots on the platform through its creator monetization plan.
• Figure Technologies, an American financial technology company, completed a $60 million Series A financing. Figure announced that it will establish an independent company called Figure Markets, which will develop a platform for investors to trade various blockchain-native assets, including cryptocurrencies, stocks and alternatives. Investment, the new trading platform will use the Provenance blockchain.
• Cross-border payment and settlement blockchain company Partior completed an $80 million Series B round of financing, with Deutsche Bank participating.
• ZK proof startup Succinct Labs has completed a new round of financing of US$55 million, led by Paradigm.

In terms of institutions, ranked by the number of investments disclosed in 2024, the top ten institutions are OKX Ventures, Animoca Brands, Polychain Capital, Foresight Ventures, a16z, Big Brain Holdings, Robot Ventures, HashKey Capital, Hack VC, Spartan Group, Bankless Ventures, GSR Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, CMS Holdings and SevenX Ventures, the specific number and amount of investments are as follows:

• OKX Ventures has made a total of 50 investments, including 10 projects with financing of tens of millions of dollars and above, namely Portal, ether.fi, Taiko, Myshell, CARV, Movement Labs, Cysic, Goplus Security, Solv Protocol and Mocaverse.
• Animoca Brands has made a total of 48 investments, including 15 projects with financing of tens of millions of dollars or above, namely io.net, Polyhedra Network, peaq, XION, Monad, Puffer Finance, Shiba Inu, Lava, Humanity, Goplus Security, Bondex, Redacted Cartel, Balance, Mawari Network, Gelato and Sapien.
• Polychain Capital has made a total of 37 investments, including 17 projects with tens of millions of dollars in financing and above, including Aitlayer, Monkey Tilt, Eclipse, Polyhedra, dappOS, Berachain, Movement Labs, Botanix Labs, Babylon, ORA, Pi Squared, Lombard, Sahara AI, Story Protocol, Yellow Card, Bitfinity and Hyperbolic.
• Foresight Ventures has made a total of 36 investments, including 17 projects with tens of millions of dollars in financing and above, including Overworld, ether.fi, io.net, Morph, Myshell, Gomble Games, IoTeX, Avalon, Movement Labs, Avail, Fhenix, Sentient, Lombard, Sahara AI, Pin AI, Noble and Lens Protocol.
• a16z has made a total of 35 investments, including 18 projects with tens of millions of US dollars in financing and above, including Ouora, Doppel, Espresso Systems, MyPriz, Kiosk, Farcaster, xAI, Neynar, Tapi, Morpho, Story Protocol, SSI, Balance, and Pin AI, Exowatt, Azra Games, Opacity Network and Vlayer.
• Big Brain Holdings has made a total of 34 investments, including 11 projects with financing of tens of millions of dollars or above, namely Overworld, Utila, Parallel, Gomble Games, Monad, Shiba Inu, Sonic, MegaETH, Essential, Solayer and Hemi Labs.
• Robot Ventures has made a total of 34 investments, including 11 projects with tens of millions of dollars in financing and above, including Backpack, Succinct Labs, Alpen Labs, Movement Labs, Nuffle Labs, Conduit, MegaETH, Sentient, Pi Squared, Celestia and Delta.
• HashKey Capital has made a total of 33 investments, including 13 projects with financing of tens of millions of dollars and above, namely Overworld, Polyhedra Network, mystiko, Seeds Labs, Cysic, Avail, Goplus Security, Particle Network, ORA, Sentient, Huma Finance, Mento and Nillion.
• Hack VC has made a total of 32 investments, including 16 projects with tens of millions of dollars in financing and above, including Aitlayer, Monkey Tilt, io.net, Eclipse, Mezo, Berachain, Movement Labs, Fhenix, Sentient, Solayer, Pin AI, Variational , Gelato, Nillion, Exabits and Spicenet.
• Spartan Group has made a total of 30 investments, including 10 projects with financing of tens of millions of dollars or above, namely Overworld, MetaCene, Morph, Peaq, Parallel, Centrifuge, Particle Network, Redacted Cartel, RedStone and Essential.

In terms of crypto funds, a total of 23 crypto funds were announced in 2024, including:

• Uncorlated Ventures raises $315 million in new fund, 20% will be used to support crypto startups
• LayerZero cooperates with a16z and others to launch the lzCatalyst plan, and participating funds will be encouraged to invest US$300 million in LayerZero integration projects
• Crypto venture capital Hack VC raises $150 million in new fund, about one-third deployed
• Immutable, King River Capital and Polygon Labs plan to raise $100 million for new Web3 gaming fund
• Web3Port establishes $100 million fund Web3Port Foundation
• Mask Network's venture capital Bonfire Union will launch a second fund, with the current total raised amounting to $100 million
• CMT Digital is raising $150 million for its fourth fund
• Tiger Global’s new venture capital fund completed US$2.2 billion in fundraising, the smallest amount raised in the past decade
• Hypersphere launches $130 million liquidity fund Atlas, plans to raise another $75 million
• Borderless Capital launches $100 million DePIN fund
• The former chief strategy officer of CoinShares founded Crucible Capital and plans to launch 2 new funds with a total size of US$75 million
• Solana accelerator Colosseum raises $60 million, has invested in 11 projects
• Cryptomeria Capital plans to launch $50 million Web3 venture capital fund
• Pantera Capital completed US$20 million in financing and plans to double its support for the TON blockchain ecosystem
• VanEck launches $30M venture capital fund to support crypto and AI
• Morph and Foresight Ventures jointly launch US$20 million ecological fund
• Foresight Ventures, MEXC Ventures and Mirana Ventures launch funds for Aptos ecosystem expansion
• Frictionless Capital has raised $20 million to invest in the blockchain sector
• Figment Capital completes strategic round of financing
• CDP Venture Capital launches Frontech Accelerator, a €7 million accelerator program
• Crypto venture capital Contango raises US$5 million to invest in startups at the intersection of AI and blockchain
• Venture capital institution AgileGTM sets up US$10 million B2B blockchain accelerator fund
• Asymmetry plans to raise US$21 million in new fund, focusing on blockchain field