Financing Weekly | 21 public financing incidents; DeFi platform Legends completed a US$15 million financing, with a16z and Coinbase Ventures participating in the investment
Reprinted from panewslab
02/17/2025·2MWhat's the highlight of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 21 investment and financing events in global blockchain last week (2.10-2.16), with a total funding scale of over US$139 million, an increase compared with the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced seven investment and financing events, among which decentralized financial platform Legends announced that it had raised $15 million from a16z and Coinbase Ventures;
- Web3 Game Track announced three investment and financing events, among which Solana's ecological AI game data analysis and incentive protocol GamerBoom raised $9 million;
- The AI+Web3 field has announced two investment and financing events, of which FrodoBots completed a US$8 million financing and plans to launch a BitRobot network combining encryption and robotics;
- Infrastructure & Tools, six investment and financing events were announced, among which Plasma announced that its first round of financing had raised $24 million, led by Framework Ventures;
- Other categories have announced one investment and financing event, and AI-powered music generation platform Fireverse announced that it has completed a US$2.5 million Series A financing;
- Centralized finance announced two investment and financing events, including Gaorong Ventures invested US$30 million in HashKey Group
DeFi
Decentralized financial platform Legends announced its first round of financing, raising $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Coinbase Ventures. Legends, launched by former Compound CEO Jayson Hobby and two other former Compound executives, will improve the foundation they and colleagues have built in Compound. Instead of forcing them to log in to multiple different applications to use their cryptocurrency, Legends will provide users with decentralized financing. The company's current focus is to strive to list on the Apple App Store and build a reliable user base. In the future, Legend plans to generate revenue through subscriptions.
Web3 innovative trading application Blum announces $5 million in pre-seed and seed rounds
OKX Ventures announces a seed round investment in innovative trading application Blum, a platform designed to create a trading experience connecting DEX and CEX for 90 million users. This round of financing was led by gumi Cryptos Capital, with Spartan and No Limit Holdings participating. Also received continued investment from seed front-wheel supporters YZi Labs and Top.co, as well as participation from well-known institutions such as Bitscale Capital and Wintermute. Currently, Blum has received a total of US$5 million in pre-seed and seed rounds.
DeFi.app completes $4 million in financing, with a total valuation of $100 million
DeFi trading platform DeFi.app raised another $4 million in its latest seed expansion round to maintain a valuation of $100 million tokens. The financing was jointly participated by venture capital institutions and Cobie's Echo platform, with Mechanism Capital, DCF Capital Partners, Balaji Srinivasan, Pentoshi and other institutions investing US$2 million, and Echo's Comfy Capital and George Beall teams contributed US$2 million. So far, the total financing amount of DeFi.app has reached US$6 million. In addition, DeFi.app announced the official opening of public beta, providing "no Gas fee" cross-chain token exchange, decentralized asset management and fiat currency purchase functions, and plans to launch perpetual contract trading, income farms and lending services in the future.
DeFi project InfiniFi completes a $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital
DeFi project InfiniFi announced that it has completed a US$3 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital, and participated by New Form Capital, Kraynos Capital, BaboonVC and others. According to reports, InfiniFi is a depositor-powered DeFi system, its upcoming InfiniFi's deposit receipt token (DRT) will be launched as a US dollar-pegged asset and will be with AAVE, Pendle and Ethena in the second quarter of this year (and other companies) integration.
Cabal announced the completion of a US$3 million financing, with Hack VC, Delphi Ventures, Nascent, CitizenX and others participating in the investment. According to reports, Cabal is a revenue generation protocol built on the Layer1 network Initia, which aims to accumulate governance rights and reward VIP users. It allows users to deposit INIT and Enshrined Liquidity positions in exchange for liquid, revenue-generating assets, thereby enhancing engagement and rewards in the Initia ecosystem.
Whetstone announced the completion of a $1.3 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with investors including Variant, Nascent, Creditbly Neutral, Uniswap Ventures, Ambush, Figment and several angel investors. Whetstone launched the Doppler protocol, aiming to optimize on-chain asset issuance and liquidity guidance, reduce robot rush purchases, improve price discovery efficiency, and introduce programmable auditable vesting periods to improve long-term incentive alignment between project parties and the community. Doppler has been deployed to Unichain and is the first to provide front-end support through Pure Markets.
TaoFi completes DCG-led investment and financing and will build an AI finance layer in Bittensor
The decentralized AI financial platform TaoFi has completed strategic financing led by DCG, and the participants include Pantera Capital, Taostats, Lyrik Ventures, etc. TaoFi will launch DeFi infrastructure such as TAO USD stablecoin, TAO Swap decentralized exchange and stTAO liquid staking on Bittensor EVM to promote the integration of decentralized AI and crypto finance.
Web3 Games
GamerBoom, Solana's eco-AI game data analysis and incentive protocol, raised $9 million in its latest round of financing, bringing its total financing to more than $11 million. The round of financing attracted investors including Bing Ventures, SKY Ventures, MBK Capital, INK Capital, CLF Capital, Metaverse Group, New Heights and Tuna, and was strategically supported by NVIDIA and Solana. According to reports, GamerBoom uses artificial intelligence data annotation and analysis to improve the value and utility of Web3 game data. The latest investment will accelerate the development of its advanced analytics solutions to provide deeper insights to the gaming industry. GamerBoom plans to launch a new season of points rewards later this month and launch core NFT sales, further attracting the Web3 gaming community.
Web3 development studio Mirai Labs completes a $4 million seed round, led by Mechanism Capital
Web3 development studio Mirai Labs completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by Mechanism Capital, and participated by Oak Grove Ventures, Sophon Capital, Selini Capital, Bitscale Capital, Manifold, Rubik Capital, Protagonist, and Lhava. It is reported that Mirai Labs is developing a product called Partnr that allows artificial intelligence agents to perform consumer-oriented encryption tasks, such as managing wallets, while understanding user needs over time.
Beamable is funded by Sui Foundation to promote Web3 game development
The company has once again received funding from the Sui Foundation to expand its Web3 game development capabilities and strengthen integration with the Sui blockchain. New features include dynamic NFT, closed-loop tokens, storage wallets, and seamless Web2 login through zkLogin (supports Google and Twitch accounts to create Sui wallets). Game developers using Unity and Unreal Engine will be able to easily integrate blockchain capabilities to improve game security, scalability and immersive experience. Related technologies will be the first to be applied to projects such as Warped Games.
AI
FrodoBots completes $8 million financing to launch crypto robot network BitRobot
FrodoBots completed a $8 million financing, planning to launch a BitRobot network that combines encryption and robotics, focusing on promoting the development of Embodied AI (Embodied Artificial Intelligence). The round of financing was led by Protocol VC, with Big Brain Holdings, Fabric, Zee Prime Capital, Tioga Capital, Sfermion, Solana Ventures and others participating. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal and several DePIN project founders participated in the investment. BitRobot will use encryption incentive mechanisms to gather computing resources, storage, manual operations, physical robots and researchers to accelerate the development of Embodied AI, and plan to open source some research results to give back to the robot research community.
NodeGo, a decentralized AI computing infrastructure provider, completed a $8 million financing round. This round was led by Hash Capital. The funds will be used to expand its decentralized AI computing network, improve real-time AI processing capabilities, and promote the layout of the Solana ecosystem. NodeGo aims to solve the problem of shortage of AI computing resources, and distribute computing power through blockchain technology to reduce cloud computing costs and improve scalability. Currently, NodeGo has 1.5 million+ active users.
Infrastructure & Tools
Plasma completes $24 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures
Stablecoin company Plasma announced that it has raised $24 million in its first round of financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, well-known venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. According to reports, Plasma is tailoring the blockchain for the most popular stablecoins and hopes to launch in the next few months. The blockchain is designed to attract stablecoin users by offering zero-fee USDT transactions. Plasma co-founder Paul Faecks said he chose to build on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, which is considered one of the most secure and decentralized blockchains. Although these two chains are interconnected, Plasma has its own consensus mechanism—a set of rules that determine the scalability, security and decentralization of blockchains.
Mango Network, the full-chain basic network of Multi-VM, completed a US$13.5 million financing
Mango Network, the full-chain basic network of Multi-VM, announced that it has completed a US$13.5 million financing, with Ainfra Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, Tido Capital, Connectico Capital, Becker Ventures, Mobile Capital, T Labs, CatcherVC and others participating in the investment. According to reports, Mango Network is a multi-virtual machine full-chain basic network, claiming to integrate the core advantages of OPStack and Move. Mango Network said that the next step will be to do mainnet and TGE.
Ethereum security platform Drosera completed a $3.25 million financing, bringing its total financing to $4.75 million. This round of financing was led by Greenfield Capital, with Anagram, Paper Ventures, Arrington Capital, UDHC and Pulsar participating. Drosera focuses on developing “Traps” smart contracts that detect and eliminate security threats on the Ethereum network in real time. The company plans to use funds to continue to optimize Traps technology, expand to other EVM-compatible chains, and launch the mainnet in the second quarter of this year.
Decentralized platform Teneo Protocol completes a $3 million seed round
Decentralized platform Teneo Protocol announced the completion of a $3 million seed round of financing, led by RockawayX, Borderless and Generative Ventures, with Moonrock Capital, CertiK Ventures, Outlier Ventures, X Ventures, Token Ventures, EOT Ventures, MN Capital, Advanced Blockchain, Venionaire Web3 participation in investment. According to reports, Teneo is a decentralized platform that connects real-world data with Web3 applications, focusing on data utilization and tokenization of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Index completed AUD 3.5 million seed round, led by Blackbird and Bain Capital Ventures
B2B product management platform Index announced that it has completed a seed round of $3.5 million (about $2.2 million), led by Blackbird and Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from BOND, Y Combinator and others. Since the platform was officially launched two months ago, it has attracted well-known companies such as Ramp, Uniswap, Clerk, and Semgrep to join the booking list. Index aims to solve the problem of fragmentation of traditional product management tools, providing real-time collaboration, customer feedback integration, demand management and engineering docking with Linear. After financing, Index has opened Early Access, and users can use it without reservation. The team plans to use funds to accelerate product development and expand global markets.
Tether announces strategic investment in self-hosted crypto wallet Zengo Wallet
Tether announced that it has completed a strategic investment in the self-hosted crypto wallet Zengo Wallet. Tether said the investment highlights Tether's commitment to promoting the development of secure self-custodial solutions and promoting the global popularity of stablecoins. The investment will allow Zengo to further enhance its cross-blockchain capabilities, thereby seamlessly supporting Tether's stablecoin in the major blockchain ecosystem. The investment will also support the development of Zengo Pro, an advanced service designed to enhance the user experience with features such as anti-theft protection, heritage transfer capabilities and real-time assistance.
other
Fireverse, an AI-powered music generation platform, announced that it has completed a US$2.5 million Series A financing. This round of investment was jointly led by Nobody and supported by OKX Ventures. At the same time, T-Fund, BingX, Gate.io, Chain Capital, TCC Capital, and Central Research and Stratified Capital are also involved. According to reports, Fireverse is an AI-based music creation platform that enables users to create, promote and monetize music through the Web3 business model. The platform provides one-click AI music processing tools, allowing users to produce music works. In addition, Fireverse also provides gamification, activity building and blockchain-based copyright protection.
Centralized Finance
Gaorong Capital invests US$30 million in Hong Kong licensed crypto exchange HashKey Group
Gaorong Ventures has invested $30 million in Hong Kong's largest licensed crypto exchange operator, a rare case of the venture capital giant's entry into the digital asset space. Gaorong Capital, an early supporter of Chinese Internet companies such as Meituan and PDD Holdings, invested in HashKey Group after its pre-investment valuation of more than $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. There is little change from when HashKey Group raised $100 million and entered the ranks of unicorns a year ago. A HashKey Group spokesman said Gaorong Capital's $30 million investment was conducted at a post-investment valuation of nearly $1.5 billion.
Digital payment provider KUN completes "million dollar" seed round financing, led by BAI Capital
Digital payment provider KUN announced the completion of a seed round of financing, led by BAI Capital, and participated by GSR Ventures, Hash Global and other strategic investors. The specific amount of this round of financing has not been disclosed yet, and it was only disclosed that it reached "millions of dollars". KUN currently provides Web2+Web3 digital payment services that support stablecoins. The new funds are intended to be used to build digital payment solutions for cross-border trade, overseas businesses, as well as Web3 enterprises and high-net-worth individuals.
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