Highlights of this episode
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 11 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (April 20-26), with a total funding amount exceeding US$101 million. A summary is as follows:
- Two investment and financing events were announced in the DeFi sector . Among them, KAIO, a tokenization platform regulated in Abu Dhabi, completed an $8 million strategic financing round, with Tether participating in the investment.
- Three investment and financing events were announced in the AI+Web3 field , including a $5 million funding round for AI and Web3 infrastructure company Cluster Protocol, led by DAO5.
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced two investment and financing events, with ILITY raising $2 million, co-led by Animoca Brands and Duck DAO;
- Two investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector . Among them, JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen stablecoin, received an additional 2.8 billion yen (approximately US$17.62 million) in the second phase of its Series B round of financing.
- The prediction market sector announced two investment and financing events, including Sooth Labs, an AI-driven event prediction model company, which is raising approximately $50 million, with a post-investment valuation of approximately $335 million.
DeFi
KAIO, an Abu Dhabi-regulated tokenization platform, announced the completion of an $8 million strategic funding round, led by Tether and several crypto and institutional investors, bringing its total funding to $19 million. KAIO builds the infrastructure to support asset managers in tokenizing and distributing funds from institutions such as BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane on-chain, with a minimum investment threshold of approximately $100 for accredited investors. The company plans to expand into credit, structured products, and ETFs, and will launch an on-chain fund with Mubadala Capital, while also channeling USDT liquidity into compliant investment products. Currently, KAIO manages approximately $100 million in assets and has processed over $500 million in transactions.
Morpho Ecosystem Vault Protocol 3F completes $4 million funding round, led by Maven 11.
3F, a vault protocol built on Morpho, announced the completion of a $4 million funding round. This includes a $750,000 Pre-Seed round launched in July 2025 and completed in November 2025, and a $3.3 million Seed round launched in November 2025 and completed in March 2026. The Seed round was led by Maven 11, with participation from F-Prime, Susquehanna Crypto, GSR, Gate Ventures, and others.
3F aims to provide users with leveraged exposure to tokenized real-world assets through a "one-click" process, completing position building within a single settlement cycle and avoiding the multi-day delays and operational risks of traditional revolving lending models. The platform will generate revenue through management fees and performance fees, and is expected to officially launch in the second quarter of this year.
AI
Cluster Protocol raises $5 million, led by DAO5.
AI and Web3 infrastructure company Cluster Protocol has raised $5 million in a new funding round, led by DAO5, with participation from Paper Ventures, JPEG Trading, Mapleblock Capital, and others, bringing its total funding to $7.75 million. Cluster will focus on accelerating its EVM ecosystem browser-native "vibe coding" development environment, CodeXero. Leveraging its self-developed decentralized computing power and an AI engine trained on over 200 audited contract paradigms, CodeXero translates natural language requirements into deployable smart contracts, DeFi logic, and token economic models. The company states that CodeXero has connected to over 300,000 wallets, processed over 3 billion AI token calls, and deployed over 25,000 dApps. Future funding will also be used to expand its engineering team, strengthen AI workflows, and enhance ecosystem partnerships.
Web3 AI infrastructure project AIW3 raises $2 million in seed funding.
Web3 AI infrastructure project AIW3 has raised $2 million in seed funding, led by Buffalo Capital, with participation from GalaXin Capital and Three-stones Ventures. The company stated that the funding will be used to advance its AaaS (Agent-as-a-Service) on-chain execution paradigm. This will focus on creating a systematic execution layer driven by real-time on-chain state awareness and dynamic risk management, centered around callable policy services, autonomous agent orchestration, and Vault-native fund flow coordination. It will also support decentralized agent networks and subsequent ecosystem expansion.
AI-powered trading platform Fere AI raises $1.3 million in funding, led by Ethereal Ventures.
Fere AI, an AI-powered digital asset trading platform, announced the completion of a $1.3 million funding round led by Ethereal Ventures, with participation from Galaxy Vision Hill and Kosmos Ventures. The platform supports cross-chain networks such as Ethereum, Solana, and Base. Users describe their trading objectives in natural language, and the AI agent handles the execution of the trades. The new funds will be used to expand platform development and optimize trading strategies.
Infrastructure & Tools
ILITY raises $2 million in funding, co-led by Animoca Brands and Duck DAO.
ILITY has secured $2 million in funding at a $21 million valuation, co-led by Animoca Brands and Duck DAO. This marks a significant milestone for the project, signifying its mission to redefine cross-chain identity and data sovereignty in the Web3 space. The project is building a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain based on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to achieve secure cross-chain data verification while ensuring sensitive information is not compromised. The new funding will accelerate protocol development, expand ecosystem partnerships, and strengthen ILITY's position as a core infrastructure layer for the decentralized future.
RealGo raises over $3.5 million, with participation from Animoca Brands and others.
RealGo announced the completion of a funding round exceeding $3.5 million, with early-stage and strategic rounds supported by institutions and strategic partners including Animoca Brands, Cogitent Ventures, X21 Digital, Notch VC, and Becker Ventures. RealGo stated that it will use the funds to advance the infrastructure development related to Meme 3, driving the evolution of Memes from simply generating buzz to becoming captureable, collectible, competitive, social, monetizable, and truly user-owned assets.
Centralized Finance
JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen-denominated stablecoin, announced that it has secured 2.8 billion yen (approximately US$17.62 million) in the second phase of its Series B funding round, bringing the total funding for this round to approximately 4.6 billion yen. New investors include NCB Venture Capital, MetaPlanet, TechMira Holdings, and Canal Ventures. The funds will be primarily used for system and application development, recruitment for business expansion, stablecoin issuance and settlement operations, and strategic investments. JPYC's cumulative issuance has exceeded 2.1 billion yen, representing a nearly 2.6-fold increase in the past three months. Its daily trading volume to circulating supply ratio exceeds 100%, and it supports three blockchains: Avalanche, Ethereum, and Polygon, with plans to integrate with Kaia and Arc. JPYC is expanding its partnerships with institutions such as Sony Bank and LINE NEXT, as well as its applications in cross-border payments and AI payment scenarios.
Malaysian digital asset exchange Hata completes $8 million Series A funding round.
Malaysian digital asset exchange Hata has completed an $8 million Series A funding round, led by Bybit, with participation from several global family offices. Bybit previously participated in Hata's $4.2 million seed round. Hata holds licenses from the Securities Commission of Malaysia and the Labuan Financial Services Authority, allowing it to provide digital asset trading and custody services in the country. Since its launch in 2023, Hata has amassed over 209,000 registered users and projected a trading volume of RM1.04 billion (approximately $225 million) by 2025.
Prediction Market
Prediction market Polymarket is in talks to raise $400 million, valuing the company at $15 billion.
According to The Information, citing sources familiar with the matter, prediction market platform Polymarket is in talks with investors to raise $400 million at a valuation of approximately $15 billion (including new funding). This funding would add to a $600 million funding round last month in which Intercontinental Exchange (the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange) invested, at which time the exchange did not disclose its valuation. Polymarket is seeking to add more strategic investors outside of Intercontinental Exchange.
(Not included in this week's financing report statistics)
Sooth Labs, an AI startup founded by former Meta employees, is raising approximately $50 million, valuing the company at around $335 million post-money. The funds will be used to build models that can predict the probabilities of geopolitical and market events. The company plans to train its models on large-scale datasets across industries (including client-owned data) and integrate multimodal inputs such as video, audio, and text, providing capital allocation and risk management decision support to institutions in finance, defense, insurance, and real estate. In a demonstration, the Sooth model gave a 16% probability that "the WHO will declare another pandemic before 2028" and a 33% probability that "Anthropic will go public this year."
Robin Markets has raised $475,000 in angel funding, led by Fabric VC.
Robin Markets announced on Twitter that it has completed a $475,000 angel round of financing, led by Fabric VC, with co-lead investors including Animoca Brands, ATKA Incubator, John Lilic, and Stefan D. George, and participation from Hilbert Capital, Layer Zero, Gnosis, and other institutions and angel investors. Robin Markets also simultaneously launched its V1 staking product to the public. Robin Markets is a DeFi platform focused on Polymarket position yields, whose core product allows users to earn yields on their Polymarket holdings.
Institutional Funds
Market maker Optiver has made an equity investment in crypto and AI venture capital fund Eden Block.
Dutch market maker Optiver has made an equity investment in crypto and AI venture capital fund Eden Block to gain exposure to early-stage AI and digital asset companies. Optiver is not currently active in the crypto market but previously made a strategic investment in blockchain technology company Digital Asset Holdings. Optiver executives stated that digital assets are a focus for the company, with the intersection of AI and digital assets being particularly noteworthy. The founder of Eden Block stated that crypto and AI are two of the most transformative technologies in the world today, and their convergence will impact the market at an unexpectedly rapid pace.
