Highlights of this episode
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 15 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (April 13-19), with a total funding scale exceeding US$165 million. A summary is as follows:
- Four investment and financing events were announced in the DeFi sector, including Brix completing a $5.5 million funding round, with investors including FRWRD, a subsidiary of Turkish bank Yapı Kredi.
- In the AI+Web3 field, four investment and financing events were announced. Among them, OpenGradient announced that it has raised a total of $9.5 million, with investors including a16z crypto.
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced two investment and financing events, including Paxos Labs completing a $12 million funding round led by Blockchain Capital;
- Two investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector, including the completion of a $100 million Series C financing round for digital banking platform Slash, led by Ribbit Capital;
- The prediction market sector announced two investment and financing events. Pumpcade, a live prediction market backed by Pump.fun, completed a $5 million seed round of financing, with Jump Crypto participating in the investment.
- In other Web3 application areas, one investment and financing event was announced: the DePIN project SHARE completed its seed round of financing, led by Greenfield Capital.
DeFi
Brix, a company focused on tokenizing emerging market assets, has completed a $5.5 million funding round. Investors include FRWRD (owned by Turkish bank Yapı Kredi), İş Asset Management, Circle Ventures, Consensys, and Borderless Capital. Brix plans to launch its first product, iTRY, on April 20th on the Ethereum scaling network MegaETH's "World Markets" platform. This asset, backed by the Turkish lira money market fund, can be used for trading, staking, and DeFi integration. Brix will subsequently launch tokenized products related to stocks, funds, and bonds in markets such as the UAE, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, and South Korea.
Crypto lending platform Votre has raised $3.75 million in seed funding, led by a16z and CSX.
New York-based on-chain investment bank Votre has raised $3.75 million in seed funding, led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Druid Ventures, and angel investors from Goldman Sachs, Harvard University, and OrangeDAO. Votre stated that the funds will be used to expand its technology infrastructure, increase platform capacity, optimize liquidity management tools, and strengthen its risk and compliance systems. Founded in 2025, Votre operates a non-custodial crypto lending platform on Coinbase's Base Layer 2 network. Its core product allows borrowers to obtain same-day USD loans secured by Bitcoin, while maintaining on-chain transparency and asset ownership. The platform offers loans ranging from approximately $25,000 to $5 million, and uses smart contracts for automated margin control and real-time monitoring.
Crypto futures exchange KieDex raises $3.5 million in seed funding.
Crypto futures exchange KieDex announced the completion of a $3.5 million seed funding round, led by Marqel Capital, with participation from Hidden Street Capital, Caviar, Kinetic Kollective (formerly CSP DAO), Solulu Club, Rocket, TPC, Devmons, TATATU, and others. KieDex is a crypto futures trading platform focused on the leveraged perpetual contract market, where users can earn KDX rewards through trading activities.
Fintech company Superstate has completed an additional Series B funding round, with Invesco Private Capital, a subsidiary of Invesco, becoming a new investor.
Fintech company Superstate announced the completion of a Series B funding round, with Invesco Private Capital, a subsidiary of asset management giant Invesco, becoming a new investor; the amount was not disclosed. Simultaneously, Invesco will assume the role of investment manager for Superstate's flagship tokenized fund, USTB (Short-Term US Treasury Fund), starting in Q2 2026. This fund, with approximately $900 million in assets, is one of the world's largest tokenized Treasury products. Following the handover, the fund will be renamed, with Superstate retaining its digital transfer agent function. This move marks Invesco's full-scale entry into the blockchain fund sector.
AI
OpenGradient raises $9.5 million to advance its verifiable AI computing network.
Decentralized AI infrastructure company OpenGradient announced it has raised $9.5 million in funding, with investors including a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, SV Angel, and Foresight Ventures. Positioned as a computing layer for "verifiable AI," OpenGradient acts as a dedicated AI coprocessor network, providing GPU and TEE node-based model inference for applications, blockchains, and intelligent agents. It provides cryptographically verifiable proofs for each inference, supporting external independent verification of models, inputs, and outputs. Its network currently serves over 2 million users, has processed over 2 million verifiable inferences, generated over 500,000 cryptographic proofs, and integrates over 2,000 models from more than 100 developers on its Model Hub, generating six revenue streams.
Nava, a startup focused on AI-powered financial agency risk control, has raised $8.3 million in seed funding, led by Polychain and Archetype, with participation from Sreeram Kannan, founder of EigenLayer, and others. Nava uses escrow accounts and a verification framework to compare user intent with transaction results before an AI agent initiates a transaction. Funds are released only if verification is successful; otherwise, they remain in custody. The reasons for rejecting or releasing transactions are publicly recorded on the blockchain for other AIs to reference. Nava currently operates as a Layer 3 blockchain deployed on top of Arbitrum and plans to deploy it in parallel on Tempo. It will also issue a stablecoin to provide insurance and risk coverage for agency activities.
Web3 intelligent layer project Claw Intelligence raises $3 million in seed funding.
Web3 intelligent layer project Claw Intelligence announced the completion of a $3 million seed funding round, with participation from Castrum Istanbul, Titans Ventures, Super Labs, and Genesis Capital. Claw Intelligence is building a unified intelligent layer that lowers the barrier to entry for users interacting with the Web3 ecosystem and computing resources by providing encrypted native MCP services and transforming fragmented data endpoints into conversational workflows. Key features of the platform include: a secure, isolated LLM code execution sandbox, supporting large language models to execute code without compromising host system security; and LLM-based cross-device multi-computer control, allowing users to centrally manage multiple computers, servers, and devices using natural language through a single web interface.
Mindra AI, a decentralized AI economic protocol, announced the completion of a strategic financing round, with LandScape Capital and others participating in the investment.
Mindra AI, a decentralized AI economic protocol, announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing, with participation from LandScape Capital, Harbor Digital Ventures, and Candaq Fintech Group. Mindra AI is a full-stack decentralized AI economic protocol that aims to break the dominance of artificial intelligence and reshape AI production relations through dynamic inference routing, cross-chain agent collaboration, and the financialization of computing power (AI-Fi).
Mindra AI stated that the funds raised in this round will be primarily used to accelerate the development of its full-stack four-layer protocol, advance the construction of the dynamic inference routing layer, agent collaboration ecosystem, AI-Fi (AI-Fi), and economic value flywheel, and create a decentralized "Intelligence Grid" to fundamentally solve problems such as centralized monopoly of AI inference infrastructure, algorithm black box, and fragile ecosystem.
Infrastructure & Tools
Paxos Labs raises $12 million, led by Blockchain Capital.
Paxos Labs, a startup spun off from stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure company Paxos, has raised $12 million in funding, led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Robot Ventures, Maelstrom, and Uniswap Labs. Paxos has a long-standing partnership with institutions such as PayPal and Nubank. Paxos Labs focuses on providing DeFi infrastructure, helping businesses offer stablecoin and crypto lending access to retail users. Paxos Labs offers a suite of software tools that enable institutions to issue branded stablecoins and allow users to participate in on-chain lending and staking with stablecoins. Co-founder Bhaumik Kotecha stated that the company expects to break even by the end of this year and currently serves the Neobank Hyperbeat and the privacy blockchain Aleo team.
Bond tokenization platform BlockInvest completes €4 million strategic funding round, with UniCredit participating.
Bond tokenization platform BlockInvest announced the completion of a €4 million strategic funding round, with UniCredit participating and acquiring a 16% stake in the company. BlockInvest will reportedly assist UniCredit in issuing Italy's first native digital mini-bond, as well as the first public blockchain-based tokenized structured note for wealth management clients, and build a technological infrastructure that combines the programmability of digital ledgers with financial regulatory compliance.
Centralized Finance
Digital banking platform Slash has raised $100 million in Series C funding, led by Ribbit Capital.
Slash, a digital banking platform for businesses, announced the completion of a $100 million Series C funding round, valuing the company at approximately $1.4 billion post-money and bringing its total funding to $160 million. The new round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Goodwater Capital and Khosla Ventures, and continued investment from NEA and Y Combinator. Slash stated that it serves over 5,000 enterprise clients, offering features such as corporate accounts, virtual accounts, stablecoin payments, expense management, automated accounting, and real-time payments. The company stated that it will use the new funding to accelerate product iteration and advance its strategy of making the bank account the command center for corporate finance.
AI quantification platform AlphaNet has raised $10 million in seed funding, led by Joffre Capital.
AlphaNet, an institutional-grade quantitative AI trading platform, announced the completion of a $10 million seed funding round led by private equity firm Joffre Capital, with participation from Huashan Capital and an Asian quantitative trading consortium. This funding will support its transition from an invitation-only, whitelist-based model to a publicly accessible platform. AlphaNet, incubated by Asian proprietary trading firm Tensor Investment, positions itself as an institutional-grade "systematic alpha" trading platform, aiming to provide retail users with trading capabilities previously only available to institutions.
Prediction Market
Pumpcade, a live prediction market and meme token issuance platform, announced the completion of a $5 million seed funding round. Investors include Jump Crypto and Foundation Capital. Pumpcade is a Solana-based platform for instant meme token creation and trading. Integrated with the Pump.fun chat system, Pumpcade allows for one-click creation of prediction markets within live streams. Previously, on April 2nd, Pump.fun led a $1 million pre-seed funding round for Pumpcade .
Totalis, a prediction market derivatives layer, announced that it has completed a $500,000 seed funding round from Y Combinator in USDC, becoming the first company in Y Combinator's history to receive full investment in a stablecoin. The funds were transferred via three on-chain transactions through the Solana network: a $1 test transfer, followed by $124,999 and $375,000; all funds went directly into the company's treasury.
Totalis stated that the current prediction market suffers from issues such as single-position exposure, fragmented liquidity, and low capital efficiency; the company is building a prediction market derivatives layer that can be combined across categories, markets, and venues, allowing users to build composite bets across assets such as geopolitics, crypto, and sports.
other
DePIN project SHARE has completed its seed round of financing, led by Greenfield Capital.
SHARE, a decentralized physical infrastructure network, has completed its seed round of financing, led by Greenfield Capital, with participation from Kosmos Ventures, Generative Ventures, Zee Prime Capital, and other strategic funds and angel investors. The specific amount raised was not disclosed.
