Asia Funding Weekly: Stablecoin rails and AI infrastructure dominate a lean crypto round

Weekly Funding Signal\nStablecoin payment rails and AI infrastructure were the week's clearest capital magnets, even as crypto deal flow stayed thin while AI funding surged into the billions.\n\n## Key Deals\n| Project | Sector | Amount | Investors | Why It Matters |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| DeepSeek | AI Model | ~$15 billion | CATL, Tencent | A Hangzhou lab raising at China scale signals state-backed and strategic capital doubling down on global AI competition. |\n| Mural | Stablecoin Payments | $15 million | Tether (lead), North Island Ventures | Tether's lead check ties a New York fintech directly to stablecoin payouts and cross-border rails that matter for Asia-facing treasuries. |\n| Orochi Network | RWA Infrastructure | $8 million | MEXC Ventures, Plutus VC, Bolts Capital, Ant Labs | MEXC Ventures-backed capital targets verifiable data rails for real-world asset tokenization, an Asia-led infrastructure bet. |\n| Nectar Group | DeFi / Bitcoin Yield | $5 million | Portal Ventures, Peer Venture Partners, Anchorage Digital Ventures | Bitcoin-collateralized yield targeting non-US institutions first gives Asia an early window into a new BTC income product. |\n| RedotPay | Payments M&A | Undisclosed | RedotPay | Buying licensed exchange BTCBOX is a direct play for Japan's regulated crypto market after pulling non-compliant services. |\n| Today AI | AI Agent | $200M+ | Ant Group, Tencent, Sequoia China, IDG Capital, 5Y Capital | Ant and Tencent co-investing in a personal AI agent signals China's consumer AI race is moving from chat to proactive assistance. |\n| Neolix | Physical AI | ~$400 million | Boyu Capital, National AI Industry Investment Fund | China's largest autonomous delivery vehicle raise underlines state-backed capital pushing physical AI into real logistics use cases. |\n\n## Builder to Watch\n- DeepSeek: DeepSeek's roughly 100 billion yuan raise, led by strategic investors including CATL and Tencent, makes it one of China's largest private AI financings. The Hangzhou-based lab reportedly raised its target twice during negotiations, reflecting intense demand from state-linked and corporate capital. The money positions DeepSeek to compete directly with Anthropic and OpenAI on global model performance. For Asia, this is the clearest signal yet that Chinese frontier-model capital is consolidating around a handful of national champions.\n- Neolix: Neolix closed nearly $400 million in new funding, pushing its cumulative raise beyond 10 billion yuan, the largest in unmanned delivery. Boyu Capital and the National AI Industry Investment Fund co-led, with Alibaba AEF NextGen, Temasek's Vertex Growth, and UAE-based Stone Venture participating. The round shows physical AI moving from demonstration projects to commercial logistics deployment. Neolix's mix of sovereign, corporate, Singapore, and Middle East capital makes it the week's strongest cross-border Asia funding story.\n\n## Also Noted\n- Dataline: The decentralized AI-agent data network raised $10.6 million from Coinbase Ventures and Vlad Tenev. Its Asia link remains indirect for now, but a planned token sale via Uniswap could draw Asian retail and liquidity.\n- X Pay: The AI-agent payment infrastructure provider raised $1 million with Japan's Skyland Ventures participating. Its x402-based model could eventually reach Asia's API and agent economy, but the round is still early-stage and EU-focused.\n- Tenstorrent: The AI chip startup raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation, with Tether Investments among the backers. Tether's participation creates a soft Asia/stablecoin connection, though Tenstorrent's core operations remain outside Asia.\n\n## Capital Flow\n- Stablecoin payments and DeFi accounted for most crypto deals this week, with Tether leading two rounds focused on USD₮ utility and cross-border settlement.\n- Investors favored infrastructure and yield products over consumer apps, backing Bitcoin-collateralized income, RWA data rails, and AI-agent payment standards.\n- The strongest Asia angle was in Japan and China: RedotPay's BTCBOX acquisition targeted a regulated Japan entry, while DeepSeek and Neolix showed China's sovereign and strategic capital concentrating in frontier AI and physical AI.\n\n## PANews View\nTether is quietly becoming a payments underwriter, not just a stablecoin issuer, using its balance sheet to shape rails in Latin America and Asia-facing treasuries. Meanwhile, China's AI capital is consolidating around national champions, pulling sovereign and corporate money into models and robots while crypto deal flow stays too thin to signal a broad recovery. The real story is polarization: a handful of strategic mega-rounds are absorbing capital that retail-sized crypto startups cannot reach.