Weekly Funding Signal
AI infrastructure vacuumed up the mega-rounds while Singapore's gravitational pull on blockchain capital intensified, positioning itself as the launchpad for programmable banking and cross-border stablecoin rails targeting Asia's frontier markets.
Key Deals
| Project | Sector | Amount | Investors | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firelight Protocol | DeFi Insurance | $8M | Gumi Cryptos Capital (lead), Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects, Tribe Capital | Asia-led round builds smart contract attack cover for yield-bearing fintechs, starting with XRP and expanding to Bitcoin and XLM. |
| Catapult Trade | Gamified Memecoin & Leverage Trading | ~$6.6M (cumulative) | KuCoin Ventures, Oddiyana Ventures, Venture Vault VC, LIS Skins founder, Trady founder | Solana-based platform with KuCoin Ventures backing signals Asia retail appetite for gamified memecoin and synthetic leverage ahead of autumn TGE. |
| Cari | Banking Blockchain Infrastructure | $32.5M | First Horizon Bank, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, M&T Bank, Old National Bank, SouthState Bank, Glacier Bank | Permitted Ethereum L2 built for banks to tokenize deposits and programmable money; all-bank round signals institutional Asia expansion potential. |
| Diameter Pay | Stablecoin Payment Infrastructure | $10M | CMT Digital & Lightspeed Faction (co-leads), SixThirty Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, Tech Council Ventures, Onigiri Capital, BitRock Capital | Onigiri Capital and BitRock Capital bring Asia ties to this US virtual account and stablecoin on/off-ramp for banks and exchanges targeting cross-border corridors. |
| DAC | Quantum-resistant Layer 1 | $1M | Unicorn Crypto Ventures | EVM-compatible quantum-resistant chain backed by Unicorn Crypto Ventures; developer and enterprise play with dual-token model, set for Asia-aware scaling. |
| Felix Pago | Stablecoin Remittance | $200M (incl. $113M credit) | a16z (equity), General Catalyst Customer Value Fund (credit) | WhatsApp-fronted USDC remittance network for US-Mexico corridor; a16z backing signals global stablecoin rail interest with potential Asia replication. |
| OpenReserve | On-chain Bank | $25M | a16z crypto (lead), Jump Capital, Acrew, Coinbase Ventures, Clocktower, Quona, AAF Management (Middle East) | Middle East VC AAF Management gives this programmable on-chain bank an Asia/MENA expansion angle; continuous settlement and atomic transactions target internet-era banking. |
| Plenti | Multi-currency Fintech | $3M | Tether (lead), Verda Ventures | Tether-led round for Colombian fintech expanding to Peru and Bolivia; processes over $680M USDT, offering a template for stablecoin-powered accounts in emerging Asia markets. |
| Polymarket | Prediction Market | $1B | 1789 Capital (lead, ~$300M), ICE (existing largest investor) | $21B valuation; prediction markets' mainstream rise draws global liquidity, with Asian traders an increasingly visible user base. |
| ParlayX | Prediction Market | $1.25M | Dreamcraft Ventures (lead) | Team-based prediction trading solution; pre-seed bet on collaborative market mechanics that could attract Asian trading squads. |
Builder to Watch
- Cari: Cari is building a bank-led digital currency network on a permissioned Ethereum-anchored Layer 2, designed to help traditional banks put funds on-chain. Its first external round of $32.5 million came entirely from regional US banks—First Horizon, Huntington, KeyBank, M&T, Old National, SouthState, and Glacier—which signals a serious institutional shift toward shared blockchain rails. For Asia, Cari's programmable deposit and tokenization model is directly relevant to markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, where regulators are actively piloting tokenized deposits and interbank settlement. Cari's architecture could become a template for Asian bank consortia seeking to modernize cross-border payment and settlement infrastructure.
Also Noted
- Figure (acquisition of Kiavi): Figure's $717M acquisition of AI real estate lending platform Kiavi uses blockchain for loan settlement; while primarily US-focused, the deal's tokenized loan infrastructure could eventually inform Asian real estate finance models.
- Fomo (acquisition of Mobula): On-chain social trading app Fomo acquired Mobula's data indexing software for $17M; the trading intelligence use case has clear appeal for Asia's active social trading communities, even though the deal itself is US-centric.
Capital Flow
- AI infrastructure dominated mega-rounds, with Crusoe's $3B, Gimlet Labs' $300M, and iPronics' $125M highlighting investor appetite for data center compute and optical interconnect.
- Stablecoin payment infrastructure and programmable banking attracted concentrated capital, as Felix Pago ($200M), OpenReserve ($25M), Diameter Pay ($10M), and Plenti ($3M) all advance on-chain settlement or fiat-backed stablecoin use cases.
- Asia's strongest angle this week was Singapore's outsized role in Southeast Asia's blockchain funding—82.5% of the region's $6.2B historical total—while Middle East and emerging market corridors (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia) also drew dollarized stablecoin expansion plans.
PANews View
The week's capital flow confirms that AI infrastructure and programmable money are bifurcating into separate but equally heated tracks. Singapore's dominance in Southeast Asian blockchain funding is striking, but it also raises a concentration risk: will the region's next breakout projects emerge from outside the city-state, or will Singapore remain the sole gateway? Meanwhile, stablecoin remittance and on-chain banking rounds are increasingly led by non-Asian VCs with explicit Asia expansion playbooks, suggesting that the real competition is for regulatory and distribution partnerships in APAC rather than pure technology.
