According to incomplete statistics from Odaily Planet Daily, there were 19 blockchain financing events at home and abroad announced from September 16 to September 22, an increase from last weeks data (18). The total amount of financing disclosed was approximately US$180 million, an increase from last weeks data (US$128 million).
Last week, the project that received the most investment was the modular public chain Celestia ($100 million); followed closely by the Rollup interoperability protocol Initia ($14 million).
The following are specific financing events (Note: 1. Sort by the amount of money announced; 2. Excludes fund raising and MA events; 3. * indicates a traditional company whose business involves blockchain):
Celestia Foundation announces $100 million funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto
On September 24, Celestia Foundation, the team behind the Celestia blockchain, announced the completion of a $100 million financing round, led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Syncracy Capital, 1kx, Robot Ventures, Placeholder and others, bringing the total financing amount of the project to $155 million.
Initia Completes $14 Million Series A Funding, Led by Theory Ventures
On September 25, the Rollup interoperability protocol Initia announced the completion of a $14 million Series A financing round, led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, and angel investors such as Bryan Pellegrino, NoSleepJon, Jordi Alexander, Zaki Manion, Keone Hon, 0x Cygaar, Guy Young, Icebergy, Chainyoda, and Michael Egorov. After completing this round of financing, Initias total financing amount reached $22.5 million, including seed round investments from Delphi Ventures and HackVC and pre-seed round investments from Binance Labs.
It is reported that Initia is an Interwoven Rollup network, which plans to build a multi-chain system based on Initia L1 and various Interwoven L2s, covering various aspects such as architecture, products and economy. Recently, Initia acquired Celatone and the team behind it, Alles Labs. Celatone is a blockchain browser company that provides browser services for Sei, Osmosis, Neutron, Initia and all Interwoven Rollup L2s.
Initia’s public testnet ended last month, lasting a total of 12 weeks. Initia plans to launch the mainnet and conduct TGE in the next two months. More than 6 Layer 2s will be online on the first day, and more L2s will be online in the future.
On September 27, Mawari Network, a Solana decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) project focusing on spatial computing, completed a strategic financing of US$10.8 million. This round of financing was jointly led by Anfield Ltd, Borderless Capital and 1kx, and Accord Ventures, Animoca Brands Japan, Blockchange Ventures, Draper Dragon, Samsung Next and others participated. Following the financing of US$6.5 million in February 2023, this round of strategic financing brings Mawaris total financing to US$17.3 million.
Mawari plans to go live on the Solana mainnet in the first quarter of 2025 and will sell node licenses in the fourth quarter of this year to expand infrastructure.
On September 29, according to official news, the fully homomorphic encryption re-staking layer Mind Network recently announced the completion of a US$10 million Pre-A round of financing. Animoca Brands, Arkstream Capital, Cogitent Ventures, G Ventures, MH Ventures, Master Ventures, Moonhill Capital, SwissBorg Ventures, IBC Group and ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze, crypto KOL Mario Nawfal, Mr Block and Kyle Chassé and other angel investors participated in the investment.
Mind Network plans to use the new funding to expand its business by integrating more staking protocols and continue to release supporting infrastructure. Users holding staked assets from partner protocols can redeem vFHE on Mind Network and participate in FHE voting.
On September 24, the blockchain game Smolbound announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Bitkraft Ventures and others, with participation from Treasure, Play Ventures, Anthos Capital, King River Capital, Zentry, Caballeros Capital, Gam 3 Girl Ventures, and Offchain Labs.
On September 25, Daylight, a personalized on-chain behavior recommendation platform, completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Union Square Ventures (USV), co-led by 1kx, and participated by Framework Ventures, Chapter One, and the co-founders of Zerion, Blockaid and Yup. As of now, Daylights total financing amount has reached $9 million.
It is reported that Daylight is an on-chain personalized API integrated in major wallets such as MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet, providing users with transaction suggestions such as airdrop collection and NFT minting.
DeSci project AminoChain completes $5 million seed round of financing, led by a16z
On September 26, AminoChain announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by a16z. It is reported that this investment in AminoChain is also the first DeSci (i.e. decentralized science) project invested by a16z. It is reported that AminoChain is building an L2 blockchain protocol that connects corporate medical institutions and building user-owned decentralized healthcare applications on the protocol. AminoChain previously raised $2 million in the Pre-Seed round of financing, bringing its total financing to date to $7 million.
On September 27, Ryan Rzepecki, co-founder of the decentralized 3D map project MeshMap, posted on X that the project has completed US$4 million in financing, with participation from a16z CSX, Colosseum, Lattice, Escape Velocity, GSR and other institutions. In addition, individual investors participating in this round of financing include Solana’s two co-founders Toly and Raj, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and others.
On September 24, according to official news, the Movement ecosystem DeFi project Meridian announced that it has completed a US$4 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital, and Amber Group, Saison Capital, Interop Ventures and Oak Grove Ventures participated in the investment.
It is reported that Meridian is a decentralized liquidity pledge protocol platform built on the Movement network. The platform is committed to improving liquidity and revenue mechanisms for users while also demonstrating the advantages of smart contracts based on Move, aiming to create a seamless, efficient and secure DeFi experience to attract users and developers to join the Movement ecosystem.
Blockchain and AI climate technology company Coral completes $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing
On September 27, blockchain and AI climate technology company Coral completed a $3 million Pre-Seed round of financing. According to a statement disclosed by it, the investor and valuation information will not be announced for the time being.
It is reported that the new funds will help Coral open a new office in Abu Dhabi, hire more experts and improve its artificial intelligence platform, while expanding its business and enhancing its blockchain-based carbon emissions management platform, which can use the blockchain backend to achieve full life cycle traceability of carbon credits.
Initia Completes $2.5 Million Community Round on Echo Platform
On September 28, Initia announced on the X platform that it had completed a $2.5 million community round of financing on the Echo platform in less than two hours. The financing was conducted at a token valuation of $250 million, a 28.57% reduction from its $350 million Series A valuation.
Earlier news reported that Initia completed a US$14 million Series A financing round led by Theory Ventures.
Helix Labs Completes $2 Million Pre-Seed Round of Financing, Led by Tribe Capital and Others
On September 23, Helix Labs announced the successful completion of the Pre-Seed round of financing, raising $2 million at a valuation of $40 million, led by Tribe Capital, EMURGO Ventures, Taureon Capital, LD Capital, and Double Peak Group. The funds are intended to increase the use cases of standardized L1 assets, solve its cold start problem by providing liquidity and users for L3, unlock Cardanos liquidity, and bring it into the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Helix Labs has joined Movement Labs Move Collective accelerator program. The protocol technology will allow Cardanos ADA token holders to stake while obtaining liquid staked ADA, which will then be bridged to Movement, thereby releasing about $12 billion in Cardanos liquidity. It is reported that Helix Labs aims to enhance the income opportunities of non-Ethereum L1 asset holders and support future MoveVM rollups through liquidity abstraction and the OmniVM technology stack.
On September 25, Movement Labs announced the launch of its accelerator “Move Collective”, which aims to cultivate and support promising projects in the Movement ecosystem and provide comprehensive support for projects at different stages of development. Projects that have recently benefited from Move Collective include:
Lync: Raised $1.5 million to build user-centric native mobile apps and games;
HelixLabs: $2 million in funding for its innovative cross-chain interoperability solution;
Nexio: Raised $2.2 million for Bitcoin parallel rollup;
Echelon: $3.5 million raised for their decentralized lending protocol;
Meridian: Raised $4 million to build a powerful and secure DeFi platform.
Move Collective aims to transform innovative ideas into successful blockchain applications by providing collaborators with a range of benefits, including funding opportunities, expert mentorship, strategic networks, and essential resources.
On September 25, EarthFast (formerly Armada Network), a front-end hosting solution, announced the completion of a $1.4 million Pre-Seed round of financing on X, led by TheGP and Nascent, with participation from Bodhi Ventures, Infinex founder Kain Warwick, and Audius co-founder Roneil Rumburg.
EarthFast originally launched in 2022 as a community project called Armada Network, with its first product being a front-end hosting solution that allows projects to transfer the responsibility of updating and deploying websites to a DAO, governance contract, or any other on-chain entity.
Gate Labs announces investment in DeFi super app LogX
On September 23, Gate.ios venture capital arm Gate Labs announced its investment in the DeFi super app LogX. LogX is the ultimate DeFi super app, providing trading products such as perpetual markets and leveraged prediction markets. It is understood that LogX raised a total of US$4 million in the latest round of financing, with a total amount of US$10.1 million.
It is reported that the investment will be used to expand the LogX product line and launch leveraged prediction markets on more than 50 blockchains. In addition, LogX plans to launch prediction market transactions on the TON blockchain by the end of 2024, serving more than 100 million potential users.
Zulu Network Completes Seed Round Financing, with Draper Dragon, CGV and Others Participating
On September 24, Zulu Network, an open Bitcoin Layer 2 network project, announced the completion of a seed round of financing. Draper Dragon, CGV, Web3.com Ventures, PANONY, D 11 Labs and Splinter Node Capital participated in the investment. The specific amount has not been disclosed. It is reported that Zulu aims to unlock new infrastructure for the Bitcoin economy and try to change the Bitcoin Layer 2 paradigm. Earlier this year, it received $3 million in Pre-Seed round of financing.
AI superchain Swan Chain completes millions of dollars in financing, led by Optimism Foundation
On September 25, the decentralized cloud computing platform Swan Chain announced the completion of a new round of financing worth millions of dollars, led by the Optimism Foundation with an investment of $850,000, and early-stage investment institutions such as Waterdrip Capital continued to make additional investments.
Swan Chain is an AI DePIN infrastructure project built on OP Stack, integrating Web3 with AI to provide a full range of solutions covering storage, computing, bandwidth, and payment. Investors in previous rounds include Binance Labs, SNZ, Chainlink, Protocol Labs, etc.
It is reported that the Swan Chain mainnet was launched in early July and currently has more than 150 ecological partners and more than 100 AI applications. The project team plans to launch the SWAN token in the second half of this year to further improve the ecosystem and incentive mechanism.
