Last week, there were 20 public financing events in the crypto market, with a total financing of approximately US$2.205 billion | Investment and Financing Weekly
Reprinted from chaincatcher
03/17/2025·3MCompiled by: Luan Peng, RootData
According to incomplete statistics from RootData, from March 10 to March 16, 2025, there were 20 public investment and financing events in the blockchain and crypto industries, with a total financing of approximately US$2.205 billion.
From the perspective of track distribution, the projects that have received financing are mainly distributed in infrastructure and AI tracks. Popular projects include the decentralized infrastructure Offline Protocol, crypto payment company Mesh , crypto lending protocol Templar Protocol , and Solana ecological staking infrastructure Rakurai .
In addition, Solana Eco-DePIN project Shaga announced that it had completed a US$4 million financing, led by IOSG Ventures, and investors include Everyrealm, Amber Group, MH Ventures and other institutions, as well as several angel investors.
(The list of projects that raised more than $5 million last week, data source: Rootdata )
1. Infrastructure
MemeCore, a blockchain platform focusing on memecoin and decentralized innovation, has completed a token round of financing, with Waterdrip Capital, CatcherVC and IBC Group participating. This financing marks an important step forward for MemeCore in building an ecosystem and integrating blockchain technology and meme culture.
In addition to investment, MemeCore will further collaborate with Waterdrip Capital, CatcherVC and IBC Group to explore potential strategic partnerships. These collaborations may include ecosystem expansion plans, joint development of blockchain infrastructure, and partnerships with three institutionally rich portfolio projects. With the professional resources and industry influence of these investment institutions, MemeCore aims to enhance the practicality of the ecosystem, strengthen market positioning, and promote widespread adoption in the Web3 sector.
“MemeCore is committed to creating a decentralized 'playground' that empowers meme community and blockchain projects. The support of Waterdrip Capital, CatcherVC and IBC Group is not only a recognition of our vision, but also provides us with strategic guidance and industry resources to help us accelerate our growth. We look forward to working closely with new partners to promote meaningful innovation and create long-term value for our ecosystem.
According to Chainwire, Aura, the on-chain AI model verification and leasing market, completed a $5.5 million seed round, led by Daxos Capital, Manifold Trading and Selini Capital, and Hermeneutic Investments participated.
With the completion of this round of financing, Aura is accelerating its technology roadmap and preparing for the next phase of platform development.
Offline Protocol completed a $1.1 million Pre-Seed round of funding, led by Portal Ventures
Offline Protocol, a decentralized infrastructure, completed a US$1.1 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Portal Ventures, and Seed Club Ventures and angel investors Paul Taylor, Rushi Manchester, Rahim Noorani and others participated. The funds raised will be used to develop its private censorship-resistant network.
Offline Protocol's decentralized infrastructure enables seamless peer-to-peer communication, offline payments, and local priority applications without relying on centralized servers or traditional networks.
Axelar Foundation discloses completion of $30 million in sales of AXL tokens
According to The Block, the Axelar Foundation has announced a strategic AXL token sale worth $30 million. The foundation said on Tuesday that several cryptocurrency investors were involved in the token sale, including Arrington Capital, Distributed Global, Electric Capital, Laser Digital, C² Ventures, Plassa Capital and Wagmi Ventures. However, the foundation declined to disclose the sale price or valuation of the AXL token. The Axelar Foundation plans to expand USD usage with stablecoins and support institutional tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) through its interoperability protocol.
A spokesman for the foundation said the investments were conducted “in recent months.” “Some of the investments involve the purchase of unlocked AXL tokens from the Axelar Foundation’s community project quota, which will be subject to a new round of lockdown periods ranging from six to twelve months.” This means that the Axelar Foundation is not the only seller in the transaction. The spokesperson declined to disclose the identities of other sellers. Other sellers may facilitate transactions through over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, where investors acquire AXL tokens that are already in circulation.
According to a foundation spokesperson, the Axelar Foundation's latest investment of $30 million this time, coupled with the $100 million raised through multiple rounds of financing and a public token sale, further increasing its total investment.
Crypto payment company Mesh completes US$82 million Series B financing, led by Paradigm
crypto payment company Mesh announced a $82 million Series B financing round to expand its stablecoin-based payment settlement network. This round of financing was led by Paradigm, with participation from ConsenSys, QuantumLight, Yolo Investments, Evolution VC, Hike Ventures, Opportuna and AltaIR Capital.
Mesh aims to build a payment network connecting crypto wallets, exchanges and payment service providers, and supports users to pay with crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, SOL, etc., while merchants can choose to settle in USDC, PYUSD or RLUSD.
According to Fortune, Arda, a blockchain startup founded by Oli Harris, former head of digital asset strategy at JPMorgan, completed a $3 million Pre-Seed round of funding, led by Lightshift Capital. Arda aims to reform the real estate industry through blockchain technology, and will provide a digital platform for the real estate economy and use distributed ledger technology to store data.
Harris said Arda will act as the central "operating system" for property ownership, helping other companies execute transactions by aggregating data and building blockchain infrastructure. The platform will create a "continuously evolving historical record" for each property, similar to the CARFAX or personal credit score of used cars, allowing buyers, sellers and financial institutions to instantly obtain verifiable, immutable records.
Arda plans to make profits by charging a fixed fee for viewing real estate data, as well as transaction fees for updating specific property data and processing transactions. Financing will be used to develop product prototypes, recruit engineers, and establish partnerships with real estate developers and related businesses.
2. Defi
Templar Protocol completes a $4 million Pre-Seed round of financing
According to official news, Templar Protocol, the crypto lending agreement, announced the completion of a US$4 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with Robot Ventures, Digital Asset Capital Management, Proximity Labs, Blackdragon Capital, NEAR Protocol and several strategic angel investors participating in the investment. This funding will accelerate Templar's development roadmap and product releases.
According to reports, Templar Protocol, a startup dedicated to developing crypto lending platforms for Bitcoin and other digital assets, Templar’s goal is to enable users to borrow Bitcoin or other assets without relying on centralized institutions. The team plans to launch the agreement in the second quarter of 2025. In the future, Templar will expand support for more assets and enhance privacy features, including differential privacy and zero-knowledge proofs.
Crypto payment company MoonPay has acquired stablecoin company Iron
According to CNBC, crypto payment giant MoonPay is stepping up its entry into the enterprise market by acquiring API-first stablecoin infrastructure startup Iron. This is MoonPay's second major acquisition in two months, highlighting its ambition to occupy the rapidly growing stablecoin payments market.
"We think everyone has a digital currency wallet, whether it's in a bank account or independently. And we build backward compatibility with the existing financial system," Ivan Soto-Wright, co-founder and CEO of MoonPay, said in an interview.
Soto-Wright compared the acquisition to PayPal's acquisition of Braintree, which handles credit card transactions for companies such as Meta, with a total payment of nearly $600 billion last year. "This is our Braintree moment, and Iron's technology makes MoonPay a promise to become the authoritative infrastructure provider for enterprise stablecoin solutions," Soto-Wright said.
Initia disclosed on social platforms that Ethena announced a strategic cooperation with blockchain network Initia, and its stablecoin USDe will be connected to the Initia ecosystem.
The cooperation includes three main aspects: First, it will establish an incentive INIT-sUSDe native liquidity pair, providing Ethena rewards, INIT staking rewards and exchange fees for liquidity locations; Second, Ethena will provide rewards for Initia ecosystem applications that use its assets as core components, including full-stack applications such as Cabal, Echelon and Rave; Third, Ethena will invest in the Initia ecosystem, starting with Echelon.
Solana's eco-staking infrastructure Rakurai announced a $3 million seed round of financing, led by ANAGRAM, with participation from Colosseum, Slow Ventures, Robot Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, P2P.org, GlobalStake, and cyber•Fund. The new funds will be used to support its launch of high-performance nodes and utilize proprietary scheduling and pipeline optimization to improve TPS.
According to official Vest news, Vest announced a $5 million financing to build The Universal Risk Engine. This round of financing was led by institutions such as Jane Street, Selini Capital, Amber Group, QCP, Big Brain Holdings, Mozaik Capital, and executives from financial giants such as BlackRock and Citadel.
Vest replaces fragmented individual risk assessment needs and provides a verifiable, neutral framework. Instead of relying on trust, financial participants can use a shared, objective risk model that can be dynamically adjusted according to market conditions.
III. AI
According to Chainwire, Sogni AI, a decentralized creative AI platform, completed a $2 million financing, led by Comma3 Ventures and Republic Ventures, with Contango Digital, Oyster Ventures, ARC, DEXT Force Ventures, Nosana, Formless Capital, Gecko Ventures and more Web3 investors and industry veterans participating.
According to reports, Sogni AI was founded by a former CoinMarketCap executive and has launched a decentralized GPU network Supernet, which aims to support AI-driven content creation. The network provides 176 times faster rendering speeds than traditional cloud services by allocating workloads on decentralized infrastructure.
4. Game
Shaga completes $4 million in financing, led by IOSG Ventures
Solana Eco-DePIN project Shaga announced the completion of a US$4 million financing, led by IOSG Ventures, and investors include Everyrealm, Amber Group, MH Ventures and other institutions, as well as several angel investors.
Shaga is committed to reshaping the gaming experience, breaking through hardware bottlenecks, and providing ultra-low latency and high-performance gaming, aiming to allow billions of players around the world to enjoy the ultimate gaming fun. By adopting edge computing technology, Shaga brings users a cloud gaming experience, where anyone can set up nodes and share games. Players can participate in the DePIN network at lower cost and lower latency without purchasing specialized hardware, significantly lowering the barriers to entry of the ecosystem.
Previously, Shaga just completed a $1 million angel round in June 2024.
According to Venturebeat., Web3 game developer M10 completed a $3 million seed round of financing, with investors including Sui Foundation , GSR, Big Brain Holdings, Monoceros, Blockchain Founders Fund and Presto Labs.
The company aims to address the core issues in the free game mode, especially the overly aggressive way of monetization. M10 is developing a competitive multiplayer shooting game to create new game business models through blockchain technology, allowing players to create and monetize their own value. The developer team comes from 3A-level gaming projects such as Assassin's Creed, Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V.
V. Others
MGX invests $2 billion in Binance and acquires minority stake in Binance
According to official sources, cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence and advanced technology investor MGX announced a $2 billion investment transaction, which is Binance’s first institutional investment to date, marking an important step forward in promoting digital asset adoption and strengthening the role of blockchain in global finance. This is the largest single investment in a cryptocurrency company and the largest investment in a cryptocurrency (stablecoin) ever.
It is reported that the investment represents MGX's first entry into the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector, acquiring a minority stake in Binance, as part of a broader strategy to support the transformative impact of blockchain on society.
The Runes market and launch platform Odin.fun, launched by Bioniq founder Bob Bodily, announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing, led by Taproot Wizards. The specific investment amount has not been disclosed yet. The new funds are intended to support the development of DeFi on the Bitcoin chain.
It is reported that after the transaction is completed, Odin.fun will remain independently operated and will continue to be led by Bob Bodily.
According to Web3 asset data platform RootData, [Odin.fun](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Odin.Fun?k=MTYxMzU= "Runes Marketing and Launch Platform") is a Runes market and launch platform, founded by the founder of Bitcoin ordinal market Bioniq and inspired by Pump.fun.
According to official news, decentralized user agreement platform PoPP announced that it had completed the last round of TGE's financing of US$6 million, with a total financing amount of US$12 million. Investors in this round include Oasis Labs, X-Labs, Becker Ventures, InnoAlpha, Blocklike Ventures, etc.
PoPP analyzes on-chain behavior, provides users with dynamic on-chain identity tags, accurately matches DApps, and provides developers with accurate audience positioning with privacy protection. After the financing is completed, PoPP will promote PoPP AI-Profile, build a Web3 user ecosystem, optimize the intelligent matching experience, and expand more application scenarios.
According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, [PoPP](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/PoPP?k=NzY1MA== "Social platforms based on SBT and NFT") uses blockchain technology to build the user's personal meta-universe social relationships, allowing everyone to issue programmable soul binding tokens and non-homogeneous tokens to carry their social relationships, organizational relationships, rights certificates and works, so that everyone who contributes to the community can gain benefits, and help users discover more valuable souls and content on the platform.
panewslab