Highlights of this issue
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 20 investment and financing events in the global blockchain last week (January 20-26); the total amount of funds exceeded US$98 million, a significant decrease compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 6 investment and financing events, among which the hybrid crypto exchange GRVT raised $5 million in equity financing from Further Ventures;
- DePIN track announced 1 investment and financing event, among which Wingbits completed a financing of US$5.6 million, led by Borderless Capital and Bullish Capital;
- Three investment and financing events were announced in the AI+Web3 field. Among them, the decentralized autonomous AI agent network MinionLab completed a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Jsquare and Capital6 Eagle;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 7 investment and financing events, among which Ethereum Layer 2 project SOON raised $22 million through NFT sales, led by Hack VC;
- In the Others category, one investment and financing event was announced, among which the blockchain-based animation platform Oshi completed a financing of US$12.5 million, led by Polychain Capital and Superscrypt;
- Centralized finance announced two investment and financing events. SignalPlus completed a $11 million Series B financing, led by AppWorks and OKX Ventures.
DeFi
Hybrid Crypto Exchange GRVT Raises $5 Million in Equity Funding from Further Ventures
Further Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund ADQ, has invested $5 million in GRVT, a hybrid crypto exchange based on ZKsync. GRVT recently launched its mainnet Alpha version, initially focusing on perpetual contract trading. It currently has an average daily trading volume of $50 million, 800 active traders and 55 institutional clients. This round of financing brings GRVT's total cumulative financing to $14.3 million, which will be used to expand spot and options trading, upgrade its Bermuda crypto business license, and seek more regulatory approvals in the European Union, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. In addition, GRVT plans to issue its tokens in the second half of 2025.
EVAA Protocol, a DeFi lending platform in the TON ecosystem, has completed a private placement financing of US$2.5 million, with participation from Polymorphic, TON Ventures, Animoca Ventures, CMT Digital, Mythos Ventures, Wagmi Ventures and several angel investors. According to reports, EVAA Protocol provides lending, borrowing, short selling, leveraged staking and other DeFi services for the TON network. The platform aims to use the new financing to launch the native token EVAA, with the overall goal of expanding TON's DeFi landscape.
Cross-chain Meme Coin Launchpad Project Printr Completes $2.5 Million Pre-Seed Round of Financing
Printr, a cross-chain Meme coin Launchpad project, announced the completion of a $2.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from Sfermion, Draper Dragon, Bitscale, Hermenutic, Sui Foundation, Axelar Foundation, and Flow Foundation. According to reports, Printr is a chain abstract token market that can launch Memes on multiple chains and trade on all chains with one click, such as Ethereum, Solana, Sui, BNB, and Base, and unify liquidity through the interoperability platform Axelar.
Solana Ecosystem Crypto Derivatives Exchange Ranger Protocol Completes $1.9 Million in Financing
Solana Ecosystem Crypto Derivatives Exchange Ranger Protocol has completed a $1.9 million financing round, led by RockawayX, with participation from Asymmetric, Big Brain Holdings, RISE Capital, Anagram and RockawayX. This round of financing was completed in December last year with a valuation of $30 million. Ranger Protocol co-founder Coby Lim said that the protocol is currently planning to add new product lines to enable customers to use AI-assisted trading strategies, and AI is expected to be launched in the "next few quarters."
RWA tokenization protocol Hamilton completes $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing
RWA tokenization protocol Hamilton has completed a $1.7 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by DisrupTech Ventures, with participation from CMS, DeSpread, Hyperithm, Core Ventures and other strategic investors. According to reports, Hamilton is a protocol that introduces tokenized assets to Bitcoin, dedicated to combining traditional financial instruments with the security and transparency of Bitcoin. Hamilton will launch three flagship products: HUSD, a Bitcoin native stablecoin backed by U.S. bonds; HUST, a tokenized U.S. Treasury bond; and Publius, a platform that authorizes financial institutions to tokenize any asset.
SONEX Completes Seed Round Financing, Outliers Fund and Others Lead Investors
SONEX, an AI-driven decentralized exchange based on the Soneium ecosystem, announced the completion of its first round of financing of one million US dollars. This seed round was jointly led by Outliers Fund and a technology and entertainment giant, with Baboon VC, Taisu Ventures, Nonagon Capital, Flow Traders, Gate Ventures and Lootex participating. The funds will be used for technology upgrades, derivative function development and global expansion, and are committed to promoting innovative development in the fields of DeFi and entertainment through blockchain and AI agents.
DePIN
DePIN startup Wingbits completes $5.6 million in funding
Wingbits, a DePIN startup, has raised $5.6 million in funding, led by Borderless Capital and Bullish Capital, bringing Wingbits’ total funding to $9.2 million. Wingbits is a decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) startup focused on the aviation industry, which aims to provide reward-based flight tracking services using cryptographically secured Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) receivers.
AI
Decentralized Autonomous AI Agent Network MinionLab Completes $2 Million Pre-Seed Round of Financing
The decentralized autonomous AI agent network MinionLab has completed a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Jsquare and Capital6 Eagle. The funds will be used to expand the Minion network. MinionLab will launch more Minions to a wider user base to ensure wider coverage and more diverse data collection; the artificial intelligence module team will develop specialized modules to solve tasks such as multi-step website navigation, advanced data extraction, and other complex use cases; and develop the ecosystem through cooperation with artificial intelligence startups, research institutions, and mature companies. It is reported that Minions are autonomous AI agents running on user devices. Earlier, the decentralized autonomous AI agent network All Stream AI announced that it had officially changed its name to MinionLab.
Vivident Completes $1.5 Million Seed Round, with Crypto Venture Capital Hashed and Others Joining
Vivident, a startup developing artificial intelligence IP technology, announced the completion of a $1.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Hashed, Mashup Ventures, TheVentures, Modhaus (South Korea), Sfermion (USA), CVC Z Venture Capital, Decima Fund and Titan Fund under Hong Kong CMCC Global. The team has a good track record in building consumer products across Web2 and blockchain technologies. The new funds will be used to support its use of generative AI technology to create anime-style character IP and community interaction platforms, and plans to launch a beta service in the first half of 2025.
AI Agent Platform Hybrid Completes Seed Round Financing, Outlier Ventures and Others Participate
AI Agent platform Hybrid announced the completion of its seed round of financing, with participation from Outlier Ventures, NxGen.xyz, Follow the Seed, Founderheads VC, CSP DAO, X Ventures, etc. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed yet. The new funds will be used to build an on-chain intelligent layer to support the creation and monetization of Web3 ecological artificial intelligence agents.
Infrastructure & Tools
SOON raises $22 million through NFT sales, led by Hack VC
Ethereum Layer 2 project SOON (Solana Optimistic Network) raised $22 million through an NFT sale called "COMMing SOON" before the mainnet launch. SOON uses the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as the core execution layer, and uses a parallel processing model to improve transaction settlement efficiency, forming a differentiated competitive advantage with the traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sequential processing mode. The financing was led by Hack VC, and many institutions including ABCDE, Hypersphere, SNZ Capital participated in the support, and it was also endorsed by well-known figures in the Solana ecosystem. SOON also plans to expand to other blockchains beyond Ethereum through its "decoupled SVM architecture" and allocate 51% of the network tokens to the community to promote ecological development. So far, its test bridge has locked more than 11,000 ETH (about 36 million US dollars).
Ethereum Layer2 network Corn has raised $8.3 million in a community financing round. The round was raised through a compliant token sale platform called Legion, involving 675 investors and venture capital firms such as Polychain, Amber, GSR, Presto, Laser Digital, etc. Corn pointed out that the conditions for participation by venture capital firms and community investors are the same. Although not yet fully operational, Corn aims to deepen the integration of Bitcoin with the DeFi ecosystem through a new hybrid tokenized version called BTCN, which uses Bitcoin as a Gas token. BTCN will be Corn's tokenized Bitcoin, backed by native Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio and not restricted to a single custodian or bridge solution. Corn will launch its own native token CORN to incentivize users and developers.
Shared sequencer solution Radius completes $7 million seed round led by Pantera Capital
Radius, a shared sorter solution, announced the completion of a $7 million seed round of financing, led by Pantera Capital. According to reports, Radius is a trustless sorting layer that provides sorting as a service and cross-rollup interoperability solutions for specialized blockchains called rollups. In 2025, Radius will launch Lighthouse to help Rollups obtain MEV revenue. By 2026, Radius plans to expand on Ethereum to increase revenue opportunities.
Bitcoin payments startup Breez raises $5 million
Bitcoin payment startup Breez announced the completion of a $5 million financing round, with participation from Entrée Capital, ego death capital, Plan ₿ Fund and Timechain. According to reports, Breez aims to introduce Bitcoin payment capabilities to every application, and in the 18 months since its launch, more than 40 applications have implemented the Breez SDK in production or testing. The company is also preparing to launch Misty Breez, a reference application that showcases a user-friendly Lightning UX through its nodeless implementation and SDK.
Crypto wallet Keplr completes $5 million seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation
Keplr, a crypto wallet provider, has completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by 1confirmation, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, HashKey Capital, Chorus One Ventures, Skip Protocol, Binary Builders, and others. Co-founder Josh Lee said that the equity financing ended at the end of last year, with Keplr valued at $50 million. With the new funds, Keplr plans to enhance its platform by hiring more people for its engineering and product development teams. The company plans to improve the user experience and expand support for EVM and non-EVM blockchains. Keplr has no plans to issue tokens. "Before we start thinking about tokens, we need to develop a bigger picture of connecting Keplr ownership, verifiability, and usability," said Lee.
Decentralized protocol Swarm Network completes $3 million seed round of financing
The decentralized protocol Swarm Network announced the completion of a $3 million seed round of financing, led by y2z Ventures and Zerostage. According to reports, Swarm Network is a decentralized protocol that converts raw off-chain data into verifiable on-chain information in real time. By integrating AI agents, human intelligence, and zero-knowledge proofs, it rewards integrity and promotes transparency.
Simple Proof, a data integrity solution based on Bitcoin blockchain, completes Pre-Seed round of financing
Simple Proof, a data integrity solution based on the Bitcoin blockchain, announced the completion of its Pre-Seed round of financing, led by ego death capital and Wolf. The specific amount of financing has not been disclosed. The company plans to use the new funds to build an Immutable Proof service and create tamper-proof digital file records based on the Bitcoin time chain and OpenTimestamps protocol.
other
Consumption:
Oshi, a blockchain-based animation platform, announced the completion of a $12.5 million financing round, led by Polychain Capital and Superscrypt, with participation from Folius Ventures, Sfermion, The Spartan Group, Nomad Capital, CMT Digital, etc. According to reports, Oshi is an open animation platform based on blockchain. Through Oshi, fans can directly support the animation projects they love and get exclusive offers. The platform's IP licensing infrastructure enables IP owners to maintain control of their works while establishing connections with dedicated global partners.
Centralized Finance
SignalPlus, an Asia-based provider of crypto derivatives trading software, has completed a $11 million Series B financing round led by AppWorks and OKX Ventures, with participation from Avenir Group and HashKey. Founded in 2021, SignalPlus provides institutions with crypto derivatives trading tools. Its products include QuantLab and Trading Terminal, which are widely used on platforms such as Binance, Bybit, Deribit, OKX and Paradigm. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its quantitative trading and risk management products, and further expand its global business through recruitment.
Accrue, an African cross-border payment platform, announced the completion of a $1.58 million seed round of financing, led by Lattice Fund, followed by Maven 11, Lava, Kraynos Capital, etc., and celebrated its third anniversary. Accrue was founded by Zino, Clinton and Adesuwa in 2021, and initially focused on fixed investment applications for cryptocurrencies and stocks. After experiencing the market downturn in 2022, the company transformed and launched the cross-border payment tool Cashramp, which has now become the main source of revenue and achieved profitability in mid-2023. Currently, Accrue has served more than 200,000 African users. This round of financing will be used to expand payment infrastructure, optimize product functions and expand the team size to further promote innovation and growth.
